LABOUR AND THE CONSTITUTION, 473 
we have had to recognise that it would be a poor service to labour and the 
country so to raise standards in one part of India as to drive industry 
into another part where standards are lower. 
Effects of Competition. 
So far as we have been able to judge, existing legislation has 
had remarkably little effect in this direction. This is partly due to 
geographical and climatic features. It is obvious that the location of 
mining industries and those connected with them and of plantations 
is determined largely by natural forces. In the case of the railways, 
the problem does not arise, and a large number of other industries have 
their choice of location restricted by factors which lie outside their 
control. While some of these industries exist both in British India and 
in Indian States, there is no evidence of any handicap arising from 
differences in labour laws. It isin respect of some of the factory industries 
that the choice of location is widest. But even here it is difficult to find 
evidence of any loss sustained by industrialists in British India on account 
of legislative differences, or any tendency to move to Indian States, 
at any rate so far as large factories are concerned. In certain centres 
of British India which lie in close proximity to Indian States, there have 
recently been important developments of industry which, if industrialists 
had felt unduly hampered by labour laws, could have taken place across 
the border. It is worth repeating in this connection that good conditions 
of labour need not hamper industrial development. The big improve- 
ment effected in British India since the war is, in our view, partly respon- 
sible for the disappearance of the scarcity of labour which handicapped the 
factory industries in previous decades. Plentiful and efficient labour will 
gravitate to places where it receives fair treatment, and many measures 
for the improvement of conditions are directly profitable to the employer. 
In respect of small factories, there would seem to have been in one or two 
limited localities a tendency to develop industry in States to avoid the 
regulations of British India. For example, in the Punjab there is said to 
be a tendency to move cotton ginning factories to Indian States to avoid 
restrictions on hours of work and child labour. In Rajputana the same 
industry is said to be developing in the States at the expense of Ajmer- 
Merwara, a very small province surrounded by States. We do not con- 
sider that our recommendations will have any general tendency to give 
an advantage to Indian States at the expense of British India. They are 
intended rather to lead to a steady and stable development of industry 
within British India. We must recognise, however, that there are 
danger points, particularly in respect of very small establishments. The 
bringing under regulation of those workshops which do not employ power 
is a case in point. Some of the industries which will be affected by the 
adoption of our recommendations are not likely to develop in Indian 
States ; but there seem to us to be distinct dangers that, in respect of 
others, persons will seek to exploit, beyond the bounds of British India, 
the labour of young children, and that owners working within British India 
with children of reasonable age may find themselves handicapped in 
consequence.