Bulletins of Indian Industries &Labour No. 40. Note on the Marketing and Utilisation of Mica

if the weight of mica exported from India during the period 1922 to 1925 as reported in the Records of the Geological Survey of India be divided into the value of the exports for the corresponding period the somewhat surprising result is obtained that the Indian exporter received during the four years in question an average price of a fraction over one rupee per pound. [...] As a result of his enquiries the present writer is of the opinion that whilst the price increase between the producer and the consumer does not appear to be commensurate with the service rendered and is probably only made possible by close working agreement between the limited number of brokers concerned the entire elimination of the middleman would be in the present state of the trade a matte [...] The seriousness of the situation has been recognized by the Government of the Province concerned in the introduction of a Bill to afford assistance and protection to the industry which Bill however was rejected by the Legislative Council in February l)28. [...] In Canada the Lacey Mine near Sydenham Ontario the largest phlogopite mine in the world and the Blackburn Mine in the neigbourhood of Buckingham near Ottawa were visited Whilst the maximum of hand labour and the minimum of machinery is the rule in Indian mines the reverse is the case in Canada due primarily to the higher wages of labour in that country. [...] Whilst the training of indigenous labour in the use of the power drills would not be a difficult problem the new methods of mining would call for a higher degree of technical skill on the part of the supervising staffs and a more liberal capitalization of concerns so that the present hand-to-mouth methods of work could be replaced by systematic develoment and lay out ; thereby minimising the