The Locomotive - Lighthouse Survival Blog

1901.] THE LOCOMOTIVE. QQ
Not many years ago, most of the jute crop of Bengal was sent raw to Dundee and
other manufacturing centers. To-day the exports of manufactured jute goods amount
to $20,000,000 a year. Machinery has been introduced by British capitalists and India
herself is reaping' the benefit of the various economies which have resulted from the sub-
stitution of machinery for hand labor. The jute mills have been built most largely in
Calcutta and in the few other parts of Bengal. About 100,000 workmen are employed
in them and the jute bags and other articles they produce are sent in large quantities
to the United States, Great Britain, Australia and the Straits Settlements. So large a
development of jute manufacturing has not failed to have considerable effect upon this
great industry in Dundee.
The progress of cotton manufacturing has been still more remarkable. In 20 years
the cotton spindles of India have increased 221 percent, and the looms 189 per cent.
There are now 4,728,000 spindles and 38,000 looms in India. Last year they consumed
1,641,000 bales of raw cotton. These mills have cheaper raw material and labor than
the British mills. In this respect they enjoy the advantage which our Southern cotton
mills possess over those of New England. Bombay is the greatest center of cotton man-
ufactures. Its mills are operating 3,500,000 spindles and 25,000 looms. But while
Bombay produces about three-fourths of the Indian product of manufactured cotton the
industry is also important in other parts of the country. The industrial revolution is
transferring the spinning and weaving of cotton from the home to the factory. It is
making cotton fabrics cheaper in the home markets. It is beginning to curtail the large
cotton imports from Great Britain, and it is encroaching upon the British markets in
other lands.
The Indian mills, for example, are comparatively near the great China yarn market.
China is one of the largest buyers of cotton yarn in the world. Vast quantities of yarn
are sold to China not only for the cotton mills which lu.ve recently been introduced
there, but also to supply the demand of the hundreds of thousands of women folk who
in their humble homes turn cotton yarn into fabrics. India's export of cotton yarn has
dow reached an annual value of $30,000,000, and the trade is increasing every year.
India does not yet manufacture the finer grades of cotton goods, but her coarse fab-
rics are becoming more and more popular in markets where she has the special advan-
tage of comparative proximity. Thus she is now selling $15,000,000 worth of coarse
cottons, most of them in Mozambique, Zanzibar, and Aden, whence they are distributed
in East Africa ;
her trade in these goods is also growing in Abyssinia, Ceylon, Turkey,
and the Straits Settlements. Her increasing product of cotton fabrics enables the home
industry to keep pace with the growing demand both in India and foreign markets.
These observations with regard to India may also be applied to Japan, whose fac-
tory interests are constantly growing. Japan promises to become a competitor with the
large cotton-cloth producing countries in supplying her home trade and the oriental
markets. Though there are now a considerable number of cotton mills in China there
seems to be no prospect that that country will have a large influence in the cotton industries
of the world. All China is likely to do is to supply a part of her home demand.
It is different, however, with India and Japan. Their competition is not likely to
be important outside of the Orient. But in the field that is nearest to them there is con-
siderable prospect that they will become in time a very influential factor in the cotton
trade, and that this fact must betaken into account by the manufacturers of Great Brit-
ain who until a few years ago almost monopolized the import cotton trade of that part
of the world.— New York Sim.