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APPENDIX I A propaganda note issued to the Labour Party Cono ference at Southport in June 1919, by Mr. B. P. Wadia, under the heading “ Labour in India. "
Textile factories employ workers for twelve hours a day.
Children between the age of 9 and 14 are employed for work for six hours a day.
Housing arrangements are non•existent and even discussions on the problem are meagre and academical.
Many workers live in villages several miles away from the factories employing them, and, therefore, they have to leave home at 4 A. M. and walk to the Mills so as to be at the gate by 5-45 A. M. They leave the Mills at 6 P. M. and reach home merely in time to eat their food and go to bed.
Thus labourers have neither leisure for recreation nor time for suficient rest.
The twelve-hours working day has one break of 30 minutes. Observations have shown that on account of faulty exit and entrance arrangements a labourer does not get more than 12 to 13 minutes for his food-the rest of the time is spent in getting out and in again into the factories.
Young persons are employed on the shift system - each shift of six hours. The first one from 6 A. M. to 12 noon, and the second from 12 noon to 6 P. M. Like their elders they walk to the factories from adjoining villages and so their working day is of eight hours, which leaves them no time for education.
The sanitary conditions in many factories are primitive and objectionable.
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