Page:Labour in Madras.djvu/216

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LABOUR IN MADRAS


Indian Industrial Commission Report, published a few months ago, disposes of the whole problem in two short paragraphs under the heading “ Education of Factory Children." What hope is there, then for the future? HOUSING. As in the matter of education the problem of housing has not attracted very serious attention from the Government. Some manufacturers have started schools for the children of their enployees, so others have put up chawls and houses for them. They have done this to secure some permanence in the fluctuating Indian labour, and as the Indian Industrial Commission Report says, “in such cases employers have often found it impossible to obtain labour without providing accommodation;" and again, “the more enlightened factory owner has found it advisable to provide accommodation on an increasing scale recognising that, though the rent which he can obtain will not pay him more than a trifling percentage on his outlay, the mill which houses its labourers best will command the pick of the labour market, especially in the case of such a fluid labour force as that on which the textile factories rely' (p. 181). The actual conditions under which the labourers live are indescribable. In the City of BombayUrbs Prima in Indis—744,000 working men are tenanted in one-roomed houses; the room is generally 8 feet by 10 feet, and a death rate of 60 per 1,000 is known to prevail. THE MORAL ISSUE. In dealing with the problems of education, housing, gratuity fund, etc., I may have appeared to be unappreciative of the manufacturers who have tried to run schools