490 OBSERVATIONS ON SIR VICTOR SASSOON’S MINUTE. 
that it is a generally accepted practice for *“ outsiders” to represent the 
illiterate workman until he has reached a more advanced stage when he 
can select his own representatives. 
MINUTE BY Mr K. AHMED, MLA. . 
T sign this Report, not because I think that the recommendations 
are adequate and will remedy all the grievances of the industrial workers 
in India, but because I believe they are calculated in some degree to bring 
about an amelioration of the present situation. It is again in this sense 
that I subscribe to all the recommendations made by my colleagues 
Messrs. Cliff, Joshi and Diwan Chaman Lall.: 
In regard to Chapter XI which deals with seamen, however, 
I must make the following recommendations :— 
(1) Theevilsin the present system of recruitment of seamen have 
been sufficiently stressed in the Report, so that they need not be 
recapitulated here. The complete inadequacy of the present system 
of recruitment, the bribery to which it gives rise and the consequent 
indebtedness, misery, and general demoralisation, call for even more 
stringent regulation than the majority of my colleagues are prepared 
torecommend. I therefore suggest that future recruitment should 
be effected only through free Employment Bureaux set up by the 
Government in the more important recruiting ports. 
(2) I cannot agree to the interpretation of our terms of reference 
which takes away from our purview conditions of seaman on ships 
registered outside India. If the foreign shipping companies have any 
oranch offices in India, and the Articles of Agreement are signed either 
in these branch offices or in the Employment Bureaux, the estab- 
lishment of which I have recommended, then I consider that it will 
be perfectly within the jurisdiction of the Government of India to 
regulate the condition under which such foreign companies engage 
Indian seamen. My second recommendation, therefore, is that the 
officer-in-charge of the Government Employment Bureaux should 
draw up model Articles of Agreement detailing hours of work, and 
living conditions on board, and that these Articles signed by the 
representatives of the shipping Companies and by the seamen on 
Indian scil; Indian courts should have jurisdiction in the matter 
of enforcing these agreements. In addition the working hours 
on board ships must be curtailed as otherwise it will lead to the 
physical deterioration of Indian seamen. Provision must also 
be made in the Articles of Agreement for proper accommodation 
of the seamen on all ships and steamers, for the supply of free cook- 
ing pots, eating utensils, beds, pillows, blankets, soap and towels 
and proper mess-room accommodation. 
(8) I am satisfied that the great disparity between the wages 
paid to Indian seamen and to the seamen of other nationalities 
is not economically or ethically justifiable. Iam prepared to concede