the Settlement Officer's claims will be. The Bengal tenant can appeal to Courts against excessive demands; the Bombay and Madras Ryot can appeal to no Land Courts and no independent tribunal against unduly severe assessments. Certainty and definiteness in the rental make the Bengal tenant value his tenant-right, and enable him to free himself from the thraldom of the money-lender; uncertainty and indefiniteness in the State demand make the Madras and Bombay Ryot till his land without hope, without heart, without motive to save, and year by year he is sinking deeper in indebtedness. The Marquis of Ripon proposed to bestow on the peasant proprietor something of the security which the Bengal tenant enjoys, but the proposal was negatived by the Secretary of State in 1885. Friends of the voiceless cultivators of India again appealed for such security in the closing days of the century; the appeal was rejected by Lord Curzon in January 1902.

CHAPTER VIII

TRADE AND MANUFACTURE

ALL the old industries, for which India had been noted from ancient times, had declined under the jealous commercial policy of the East India Company; and when Queen Victoria ascended the throne in 1837 agriculture was left the only national industry of the people. Little was done to foster new industries after the Crown assumed the administration of India in 1858; and the last decades of the century still found the Indian manufacturer and artisan in a state of poverty and decline. A few experiments were made from time to time, but not on an adequate scale, and not in a manner commensurate with the vast interests at stake.

Cotton.-Spinning and weaving were the national industries of India down to the commencement of the nineteenth century. The spinning-wheel and the handloom were universally in use; and it is scarcely an exaggeration to state that nearly half the adult female population of India eked out the incomes of their husbands and their fathers by the profits of their own labour. It was an industry peculiarly suited to Indian village life. There were no great mills and factories; but each woman brought her cotton from the village market, and sold her yarn to the village weaver, who supplied merchants and traders with cloth. Vast quantities of piece goods, thus manufactured, were exported by the Arabs, the Dutch, and the Portuguese; and European nations competed with each other for this lucrative trade with India. But when the East India Company acquired territories in India, they reversed this policy. Not content with the

carrying trade between India and Europe, British manufacturers sought to repress Indian industries in order to give an impetus to British manufactures. Their great idea was to reduce India to a country of raw-produce, and to make her subservient to the manufacturing industries of Great Britain. How this policy was pursued, and how it ultimately succeeded, has been narrated in another work.1

Later on, when power-looms had entirely supplanted hand-looms in Europe, Indian capitalists began to start cotton mills in their own country. This, again, aroused the jealousy of Lancashire manufacturers; and the fiscal policy pursued by the Indian Government in 1874 to 1879 has been told in a previous chapter. And the sad story will be continued to the close of the century in the succeeding chapter.

But hand-looms still survive in India to some extent, in spite of power-looms. The reasons are not far to seek. India is pre-eminently a country of small industries and small cultivation. Land in England belongs to great landlords; the agriculturists are mere farmers and labourers. But land in India belongs primarily to small cultivators who have their hereditary rights in their holdings; the landlord, where he exists, cannot eject them so long as they pay their rents. In the same manner, the various industries of the country were carried on by humble artisans in their own villages and huts; the idea of large factories, owned by capitalists and worked by paid operatives, was foreign to the Indian mind. And despite the great results which are achieved by capital, it is nevertheless true that the individual man is at his best,-in dignity and intelligence, in foresight and independence,-when he works in his own fields or at his own loom, rather than when he is a paid labourer under a big landlord or a wage-earner in a huge factory. And every true Indian hopes that 1 India under Early British Rule, 1757-1837.

the small cultivation of India will not be replaced by landlordism, and that something of the home industries will survive the assaults of capitalism.

Endeavours have been made to help the handloom weavers who still carry on their hereditary profession. Their methods are susceptible of improvement, and their output could be largely increased by the use of improved looms. Experiments are being made in different places, and specially in Madras. It is too early yet to say what the result will be; but it is confidently believed that, with necessary improvements, hand-looms will be found to answer, at least for certain descriptions of goods. Such a result would help millions of poor weavers, Hindu and Mahomedan, who have sunk to the lowest depths of poverty, and are the earliest victims of famines. And a civilised Government has no more sacred duty than to help these submerged classes, and revive one of the most ancient industries of India.

Silk.-Silk manufactures have declined from the days of the East India Company, and their export is insignificant. Tussur silk is grown in most parts of India, and quantities of fabrics are produced both for home use and for export. In Assam, silk still continues to be the national dress of women, and the industry is entirely a home one, each family weaving Sarees for its own use. Finer silks, produced by the mulberry-feeding worms, are obtained in Bengal districts, and some improvement has been effected by the adoption of scientific methods of testing the "seed" and rearing the worms. In the Punjab, however, the endeavour to reintroduce the cultivation of silkworms has ended in failure. In Kashmir, the industry is indigenous, and the State is endeavouring to develop it by the importation of sound "seed" from Europe. "The silk-weavers of India possess the very highest skill in their craft, and it is probable that under competent and energetic direction, with the assist

ance of capital, the industry could be revived and extended." 1

Wool. The manufacture of coarse blankets, used by the poor, is carried on in many parts of India. The Shawl industry of Kashmir is practically extinct, so far as elaborate and artistic products are concerned; and such shawls are produced in only very small quantities, generally to order. The Punjab is still, however, the seat of a considerable woollen manufacture, and specially of woollen carpets. And the carpet industry of Madras is also important.

Woollen mills, conducted mainly by European capital and under European management, nearly doubled their production within the last decade of the century; and there were 594 looms and 22,986 spindles in 1901. The output of the mills is chiefly used for the army and the police.

Jute.-Bengal has virtually a monopoly of the cultivation of jute, the average yield of the crop being about twenty million cwt. One half of this produce is exported to Europe, while the other half is used either for the making of home-spun cloths or bags, or in the jute mills. There were 35 mills, 8218 looms, and 171,148 spindles in 1901, and the number of looms and spindles nearly doubled in the succeeding year.

Hands Employed. But altogether mill industry in India is still in its infant stage, and the number of people who find employment in these industries is insignificant. In the year 1901 the cotton mills of India employed 173,708 hands; the jute mills employed 64,700 hands; and apart from indigenous home industries there was no other manufacturing industry which employed as many as 20,000 hands.

In the preparation of agricultural staples for the market, indigo factories employed 173,000 workers; jute presses, 20,000; cotton ginning, cleaning, and pressing 1 Moral and Material Progress and Condition of India, 1901-2, p. 227.