CHAPTER XIX. ARTS AND MANUFACTURES. factures of India. INDIA may be truly described as an agricultural rather than Manua manufacturing country, yet it must not be inferred that she is destitute of the arts of civilised life. She has no swarming hives of industry to compare with the factory centres of Lancashire; nor any large mining population. But in all manufactures requiring manual dexterity and artistic taste, India may challenge comparison with Europe in the last century; in many of them, with England at the present day. The rival kingdoms into which the country was formerly divided, gave birth to many arts of luxury. When the first European Art work. traders reached the coast of India in the 16th century, they found a civilisation both among 'Moors' and 'Gentoos' at least as highly advanced as their own. In architecture, in fabrics of cotton and silk, in goldsmith's work and jewellery, the people of India were then unsurpassed. But while the East has stood still, as regards manufactures on a great scale, the West has advanced by gigantic strides without a parallel in the history of human progress. On the one hand, the downfall English of the native courts deprived the skilled workman of his chief competi market; while on the other, the English capitalist has enlisted in his service forces of nature against which the village artisans in vain try to compete. The tide of circumstances has compelled the Indian weaver to exchange his loom for the plough, and has crushed many of the minor handicrafts. tion. turned. Some consolation can be found in the establishment, within The tide the past few years, of mills fitted out by English capital with now English machinery. A living portion of our own industrial activity has been transplanted to Indian soil. Manchester is growing up in miniature at Bombay, and Dundee at Calcutta. The time may yet come when India shall again clothe her people with her own cotton; she already supplies sacks from her jute for the commerce of the world. Historically the most interesting, and still the most important Native industries. in the aggregate, of all Indian industries are the simple crafts in every rural hamlet. The weaver, the potter, the blacksmith, The village craftsmen. the brazier, the oil-presser, are members of a community, as well as inheritors of a family occupation. On the one hand, they have a secure market for their wares; and on the other, their employers have a guarantee that their trades shall be well learned. The stage of civilisation below these village industries is represented by the hill tribes, where the weaving of clothes is done by the women of the family. An advanced stage may be found in those villages or towns which possess a little colony of weavers or braziers noted for some speciality. Yet one degree higher is the case of certain arts of luxury, such as ivory-carving or the making of gold lace. One other form of native industry owes its origin to European interference. Fortified Many a village in Bengal and on the Coromandel coast still weaving shows traces of the time when the East India Company and its settlements. continental rivals gathered large settlements of weavers round their little forts, and thus formed the only industrial towns that ever existed in India. But when the Company gave up its private trade in 1813 and 1834, such centres of industry rapidly declined; and the once celebrated muslins of India have been driven out of the market by Manchester goods. Cotton in India, an indigenous industry. Cotton-weaving is a very ancient industry of India. In weaving England it dates back only a couple of centuries, wool and linen having been our own historical staples; but in India it has been practised from the time of the Mahábhárata. The Greek name for cotton fabrics, sindon, is etymologically the same as that of India, or Sind; while in later days, Calicut on the Malabar coast has given us 'calico.' Cotton cloth has always been the single material of Indian clothing for both men and women, except in Assam and Burma, where silk is preferred, perhaps as a survival of an extinct trade with China. The author of the Periplus, our earliest authority on the trade of India, enumerates a great variety of cotton fabrics among her exports. Marco Polo, the first Christian traveller, dwells upon the 'cotton and buckram' of Cambay. When European adventurers found out the way to India, cotton and silk always formed part of the rich cargoes they brought home. The English, in especial, appear to have been careful to fix their earliest settlements amid a weaving population-at Surat, at Calicut, at Masulipatam, at Húglí. In delicacy of texture, in purity and fastness of colour, in grace of design, Indian cottons may still Causes of hold their own against the world. But in the matter of cheapits decline. ness, they have been unable to face the competition of Manchester. Many circumstances conspired to injure the local industry. In the last century, England excluded Indian cotton fabrics, not by fiscal duties, but by absolute prohibition.1 A change of fashion in the West Indies, on the abolition of slavery, took away the best customer left. Then came the cheapness of production in Lancashire mills, due to improvements in machinery. Lastly, the high price of raw cotton during the American War, however beneficial to the cultivators, fairly broke down the local weaving trade in the cotton-growing tracts. Above all, the necessity under which England lies to export something to India to pay for her multifarious imports, has permanently given an artificial character of inflation to this. branch of business. domestic Despite all these considerations, hand-loom weaving still Still a holds its own with varying success in different parts of the industry. country. Regarded as a trade, it has become unremunerative. Little is made for export, and the finer fabrics generally are dying out. The far-famed muslins of Dacca and of Arní are now wellnigh lost specialities. But as But as a village industry, weaving is still carried on everywhere, though it cannot be said to flourish. If Manchester piece-goods are cheaper, native piece-goods are universally recognised as more durable. Comparative statistics Supplies are, of course, impossible; but it may be roughly estimated three-fifths that about three-fifths of the cotton cloth used is woven in the country from native thread or from imported twist. of Indian consumpt. In 1870, the Madras Board of Revenue published a valu- Cottonable report on hand-loom weaving, from which the following in Madras, weaving figures are taken. The total number of looms at work in 1870; that Presidency, with its population of 31 millions, was returned at 279,220, of which 220,015 were in villages and 59,205 in towns, showing a considerable increase upon the corresponding number in 1861, when the mohartarfa, or assessed tax upon looms, was abolished. The total estimated consumption of twist was 31,422,712 lbs., being at the rate of 112 lbs. per loom. Of this amount, about one-third was imported twist, and the remainder country-made. The total value of the cotton goods woven was returned at 3 millions sterling, or £12, 10s. per loom; but this was believed to be much under the truth. The export of country-made cloth in the same year was about £220,000. In the Central Provinces, in Central Provinces, where hand-loom weaving is still fairly maintained, and where 1878; the statistics are more trustworthy than in other parts of India, the total number of looms is returned at 87,588, employing 145,896 weavers, with an annual out-turn valued at £828,000. In 1878-79, the export of Indian piece-goods from the Central 1 See ante, p. 448. in Bom bay. in Bengal; Provinces was valued at £162,642. As regards Bengal, handloom weaving is generally on the decline. The average consumption of piece-goods throughout the Province is estimated at about 5s. per head, and the returns of registered trade show that European piece-goods are distributed from Calcutta at the rate of about 2s. 5d. per head. In Midnapur, Nadiya, and Bardwán, the native weavers still hold their own, as appears from the large imports of European twist; but in the eastern Districts, which have to balance their large exports of jute, rice, and oil-seeds, the imports of European cloth rise to the high figure of 2s. 7d. per head. No part of India has more cruelly felt the English competition than Bombay, where, however, the introduction of steam machinery is beginning to restore the balance. Twist from the Bombay mills is now generally used by the hand-loom weavers of the Presidency, and is largely exported to China. But it is in the finer fabrics produced for export that the Bombay Districts have suffered most. Taking Surat alone, the export by sea of piece-goods at the beginning of the century was valued at £360,000 a year. By 1845, the value had dropped to £67,000, rising again to £134,000 in 1859; but in 1874, it was only £4188. It is impossible to enumerate all the many special fabrics which are still produced in various parts of the country. First among these are the far-famed muslins of Dacca, which can still be obtained to order, although the quality is far inferior to what it was when Dacca was the capital of a luxurious Muhammadan court. Most of the weavers are Hindus, and the high development which their industry has reached may be judged from the fact that they employ no fewer than 126 distinct implements. The finest muslins are woven plain, but patterns of coloured silk are afterwards embroidered on them by a separate class of workmen. (For the decay of the Dacca manufactures, and the transfer of the weaving communities to agricultural employments, see article DACCA.) Fine muslin is woven in small quantities at Sarail in the adjoining District of Tipperah; and Sántipur, in Nadiyá, still retains its reputation for delicate fabrics. But with these exceptions, cotton-weaving in Bengal produces only coarse articles for common use. Madras, the fine fabrics maintain their ground at more places, although at none is the trade flourishing. Among those deserving mention are the muslins of Arní, the cloth woven by the Nairs on the Malabar coast, the chintzes of Masulipatam, the panjam or '120-thread' cloth of Vizagapatam, and the blue salampurs of Nellore. At Bangalore, the descendants of the Special Indian fabrics. Dacca muslins. Madras muslins. In old court weavers still manufacture a peculiar kind of cloth, Bangalore cloths. printed in red and black with mythological designs. In the Bombay Presidency, Ahmedábád, Surat, and Broach are the Bombay fabrics. chief centres of the manufacture of printed sárís, for which Guzerat is celebrated; while Poona, Yeola, Násik, and Dhárwár produce the fabrics dyed in the thread, which are much worn by the Marhattá races. Silk is often combined with cotton on the looms, and the more expensive articles are finished off with a border of silk or gold lace. Chanda and Hoshangábád are the largest weaving towns in the Central Provinces. weaving: Assam ; Silk-weaving is also a common industry everywhere, silk Indian fabrics, or at least an admixture of silk in cotton, being uni- silkversally affected as a mark of wealth. Throughout British Burma, and also in Assam, silk is the common material of clothing; usually woven by the women of the household. In Burma, the bulk of the silk is imported from China, generally in Burma in a raw state; but in Assam it is obtained from two or three and varieties of worms, which are generally fed on jungle trees, and may be regarded as semi-domesticated.1 Bengal is the only in Bengal. part of India where sericulture, or the rearing of the silk-worm proper on mulberry, can be said to flourish. The greater part of the silk is wound in European filatures, and exported in the raw state to Europe. The native supply is either locally consumed, or sent up the Ganges to the great cities of the NorthWest. A considerable quantity of raw silk, especially for Bombay consumption, is imported from China. that obtained from the cocoons of semi-domesticated worms, does not contribute much to the supply.3 Tasar silk, or These fabrics are of two fabrics. As compared with cotton-weaving, the silk fabrics form a town rather than a village industry. kinds (1) those composed of pure cotton warp crossed by a woof of silk. embroidered with gold and silver. known as mashru or sufi, the latter word meaning 'permitted,' because the strict ceremonial law will not allow Muhammadans to wear clothing of pure silk. They are largely woven in the towns of the Punjab and Sind, at Agra, at Haidarábád in the Deccan, and at Tanjore and Trichinopoli. Pure silk fabrics are either of simple texture, or highly ornamented in the form of kinkhabs or brocades. The latter are a speciality of Benares, Brocades. 1 For further details, see ante, p. 405. For a full account of sericulture and the mulberry growth, see ante, PP. 404, 405. See ante, p. 405. |