388 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
I cannot therefore see how anybody could say that I am trying to rush this measure through the House.
With regard to the point made by my friend, Mr. Inskipt, that in this matter they had not had sufficient notice to consult their clients, I cannot help saying that he has entirely misunderstood the previous history, or forgotten the previous history of this Bill. This Bill was placed before the Standing Labour Committee in the year 1944. The Committee was completely unanimous and the Committee suggested that the Bill was so necessary and that it was so non-contentious that Government might as well pass the Bill in the form of an ordinance, which we did not do. Thereafter, the matter was again discussed in the Indian Labour Conference.
Another point which he made was that the Bill, as it is now presented to the House, was not in the same form in which it was placed before the Labour Conference. I would like to tell him that it is entirely a mistaken view. Government has made no changes whatsoever in the form of the Bill as it was placed before the Tripartite Conference.
My friend, Professor” Ranga, raised a question regarding the applicability of this Bill to smaller factories. My friend, Mr. Gwilt, also emphasized it and said that I should give an explanation. Anyone who read sub-clause (3) of clause 1 would not certainly be labouring under any such misapprehension that the Bill is intended only to industrial establishments wherein one hundred or more workmen are employed, because that clause itself states that Government will have the power and the authority to extend this “to such class or classes of other industrial establishments as the appropriate Government may from time to time, by notification in the Official Gazette, specify in this behalf.” Government, therefore, has retained the power in its own hands to make it applicable to industrial establishments which may have less than hundred people. Therefore, any fear which is entertained on the ground that this is intended primarily to apply to industrial establishments wherein one hundred or more persons are employed and that consequently other establishments employing lesser number of people would be excluded, is a fear which I submit is completely unfounded.
Diwan Chaman Lall : May I intervene for a minute ? On page
2, in clause 2(e) (ii), under definition of industrial establishment it is stated that “ it means a factory as defined in clause (j) of section 2 of the