Page:Labour in Madras.djvu/240

ments. There is an Indian Factories Act, which was originally passed in 1881, and was last amended in 1911. The law permits a twelve hours day; women are worked for eleven hours; children between the ages of nine and fourteen are worked for six hours. In the matter of wages the law is dumb; in the matter of sanitation it speaks in halting terms, and the inspection is superficial. Thus the record of the Administration in the past is not a satisfactory one from the view point of the labourer. Therefore I respectfully suggest that in the list of Provincial subjects both Nos. 24 and 25 and not only No. 24 should be transferred. I wish to draw the attention of the member for your Committee to page 26 of the Functions Committees Report. There we find No. 24 : Development of Industries, including industrial Research and Technicial Education is a transferred subject, but industrial matters included under the following heads: Factories, Settlement of Labour Disputes, Electricity, Boilers, Gas, Smoke Nuisances, and welfare of Labour are all kept reserved in all the Provinces If both these items, 24 and 25, are transferred, then the Committee must contrive to get Indian labour to influence Provincial Legislatures in the future. As the Bill is framed at present and as the Southborough Report on Franchise stands, the Indian labourer is not at all enabled to better his lot through proper representatives; he will have to rely as in the past on the good-will of others, be they foreigners or be they his own countryman. I submit that the labourer's interests must be safeguarded and that the process of safeguarding them must be put into his own hands and into no one else's. This raises the question of the fitness of the Indian