Miscellaneous Industrial, Agricultural, and Mining Operations

CHAPTER VII

MISCELLANEOUS INDUSTRIAL, AGRICULTURAL, AND MINING OPERATIONS

IN the preceding pages we have related the story of the cotton industry and the shipbuilding industry: in what condition they were before the British took possession of India, and how they have fared since. In this section we give the reader a general idea about other industries and also about the general import and export trade.

Indigo

India from time immemorial had been famous for its beautiful dyes. The dyeing industry was closely connected with weaving, and the colours in which cotton and silk fabrics were woven increased immensely their price and their acceptability. Most of the dyes were produced from vegetables. “Indigo, lac, safflower and tumeric, moski, horitoki, maujestha and vandis flowers were the ingredients.”

The trade in indigo was made a European monopoly in the very early days of British rule. It is one of the darkest chapters of the history of Bengal and Bihar that tells of the wrongs and oppressions committed on Indians by the European indigo planters. In his survey of Bengal made in the early years of the nineteenth century, Dr. Buchanan gives the details of the industry as he found it in each district and also of the way in which the European license holders treated the native growers. Among other causes of complaint he mentions that the planter considers the growers “as his slaves, beats and confines them whenever he is dissatisfied,” that the growers are “cheated both in the measure of their land and in the measure of the weed”; that the planters are “insolent and violent.”

So frequent were the acts of violence committed by European indigo planters that the government was compelled to issue circulars to magistrates drawing their attention to “the offence” which had been established “beyond all doubt or dispute against individual planters.”

The manufacture of indigo is not an important industry now. It has been killed principally by the imports of dyes from Germany.

Jute

The jute industry owes its growth to quite recent times. It is said that “about sixty years ago jute was almost unknown.”¹

The total area under cultivation (mainly in eastern and northern Bengal “exceeds three million acres, and the output may be estimated at more than eight million bags (of 600 lbs.) of which nearly half is exported raw, the rest being worked up in the mills near Calcutta.”²

“The jute mills are nearly all concentrated in Bengal in the vicinity of Calcutta and are mostly in the hands of British firms.”³

I have italicised the word “mostly.” It would have been perhaps nearer the truth to say “nearly all.”

Woollen Mills

There were six woollen mills at work at the end of 1913, containing 1086 looms and 38,963 spindles and producing goods valued at £374,000 for the year.⁴ They are most of them, if not all, in the hands of British firms.

Paper Mills

There were seven paper mills at work at the end of 1913, producing during the year sixty million pounds of paper valued at £535,800. (In the year 1913 we imported paper of the value of about nine millions sterling from foreign countries, of which about six millions’ worth came from the United Kingdom alone.) The industry is principally in the hands of British firms, only two of the five larger mills being in native hands. In the Indian year book for 1917 the total number of paper mills in India at the end of 1915-16 is given at eleven, but it is said that only seven were in operation.

Breweries

This is a purely British industry in British hands. At the end of 1913 there were twenty-one breweries which produced during the year 3,654,000 gallons of beer.

Rice Mills and Saw Mills

Rice mills and saw mills are most numerous in Burma, and “are mainly in European hands,” being “the only large industries in Burma, organised and worked by Western methods.”⁵

Iron

“Iron ore of rich quality is widely distributed over the country,” says Mr. J. S. Cotton, editor of the Imperial Gazeteer and the writer of the chapter on Industrial and Economic Conditions in the “Oxford Survey of British Empire” (Asia, 1911). “In former times iron smelting in little charcoal furnaces was a common industry. The steel thus produced, anticipated by many centuries the finest qualities of the modern European product. Indeed the iron age in India … has been placed as early as 1500 B.C. But no local industry has suffered more from importation than that of ironsmelting. Apart from two Capitalist enterprises the total value of iron ore mined is estimated at only £15,000, while the annual imports of iron and steel exceed £4,000,000.”⁶

Yet there is not a single good school for the teaching of mining in the country! The College of Engineering pretends to make a provision for teaching a mining course which was being pursued at the beginning of the session 1913-14 by a group of 16 students. We are in the Bengal coal fields under lecturers appointed by the mining Educational Board there were 360 registered students and, in June, 1913, 17 had qualified for certificates. The Mining and Geological Institute of India, which was inaugurated at the end of 1905, numbers 308 members.⁷ The Tata Iron and Steel Works is an Indian concern, which is trying to revive the industry. They started work in 1912 and Mr. J. S. Cotton says that “it is interesting to learn that a much larger proportion of the labour is in the hands of trained Indians than was anticipated.” Where did the Indians who are engaged in this industry secure their training? Most probably in America, perhaps some in Europe.

The total output of Indian iron ore in 1914 was a little under 442,000 tons which in 1915 fell to about 390,000 tons. The amount of pig iron produced during the year by the Tata Company was 156,500 tons and by the Bengal Iron and Steel Company 87,285 tons. The former company produced 76,355 tons of steel including 16,871 tons of steel rails and the latter 25,634 tons of cast iron castings. (“The Indian Year Book, 1917,” p. 332.)

Copper

“Copper ore is likewise widely distributed over the country, especially in the north, but it is nowhere now worked profitably, whereas the importation of copper amounts to nearly £2,000,000.”⁸

Manganese

“More important than any of these is manganese ore,” says Mr. Cotton, “the mining of which began in the last decade of the nineteenth century and has advanced so rapidly that India now ranks as the second country (after Russia) for the production of this substance. . . . The ores are exceedingly rich, and they are exported in bulk to be smelted abroad. The annual production has reached 900,000 tons valued at £577,000.”⁹ The number of manganese quarries worked in British territory alone is forty-one, employing more than 7000 persons. “The Indian Year Book for 1915” (published by the Times of India Office, Bombay) says that “India now takes the first place among manganese producing countries in the world.” In 1915 the output was 450,416 tons, valued at £929,546. That is a matter of great satisfaction, except that the profits are almost exclusively monopolised by Europeans.

Coal

The total output of coal in 1913–14 was 16,208,000 tons, of which 723,641 tons were exported. In this year 559,190 tons were imported into India. In 1915–16, the Indian output was 17,103,932 tons, of which we exported 751,801 tons as against 175,000 tons imported. This is probably the only mineral product the profits of which go partly into the pockets of the Indians, because most of the coal raised in India comes from Bengal and the Bengal Zemindar has used his opportunities to advantage. In what proportion the industry is owned by Europeans and by natives, I have no means of saying.

Other Minerals

The following table gives the value of minerals produced in 1915:

Of these we have already dealt with coal and manganese; salt is a government monopoly; petroleum, gold, mica, lead-ore, lead and tungsten-ore are principally in European hands; saltpetre and building materials and road metals are shared by both but probably by far the larger share is in native hands.

Tea and Coffee

Both these industries are in the hands of Europeans and have been the source of untold misery to the people of India for the reason that in the interest of European capital the Government of India has been lending itself to make special legislative provisions for the supply of indentured labourers for the tea plantations in Assam.

“Of crops grown with European capital and under European supervision by far the most important is tea,” says Mr. Cotton in the “Oxford Survey of British Empire” (Asia), page 133. In 1915 the area under cultivation for tea was 636,218 acres. In 1915, the total production was 371,836,668 pounds, of which 291,795,041 pounds were exported. The capital of joint stock companies engaged in this business was about £20.7 millions in 1915, of which £17,670,760 is owned by companies registered in Great Britain and Ireland. The balance, less than three millions, belongs to companies registered in India, which does not mean that they are constituted of Indians.¹⁰ The great bulk of the Indian companies also are European in membership; so practically the whole profits of this industry go to European pockets. The coolies employed under special laws enacted for the benefit of the European capitalist have the hardest possible time and get practically slave wages. The total exports of tea in 1915 amounted to 340,433,163 lbs.

Coffee planting is confined to Southern India where it is said to be “pursued by Indians as well as by Europeans.” The industry is “stationary, if not declining.” The total exports in 1915 amounted to 290,000 cwts.