I. THE GENERAL POSITION
EVEN at the present day it is, as a rule, easier to study external trade than internal production, and no surprise will be felt that the statement is equally applicable to India in the six- teenth century, seeing that the bulk of our information is furnished by writers whose primary interests lay in commerce and who refer to production only so far as its conditions affected the supply of merchandise for export. Accordingly we have no contemporary description of the industrial posi- tion which can be regarded as complete or satisfactory. The “Account of the XII. Subas,” included in the Ain-i Akbari, deals with mineral and industrial production, but the informa- tion it gives is far from being exhaustive, and Abul Fazl antici- pates some modern writers in paying more attention to rare and curious products than to the articles consumed by the masses of the people. European travellers likewise were apt to ignore the staple products of the country because their interest was attracted mainly by the limited classes of goods which could bear the heavy cost of transport to Europe, and consequently it is not altogether easy to obtain a just view of the relative importance of different branches of production. In the sections which follow I have endeavoured to direct attention mainly to those goods which were quantitatively important, either because they were consumed by the masses of the people, or because they formed the basis of the export trade, and with this object I have drawn freely on the information available in regard to internal consumption and to foreign commerce.
Speaking generally, it may be said that at this period India was very nearly self-supporting, and that her imports were limited to certain metals and raw materials, together with a large number of articles of luxury required for consump- tion by a very small proportion of the population. The advantages enjoyed by a self-supporting community are in some quarters regarded as so important that it is perhaps desirable to say at the outset that I use the word to express an economic fact, and without any implication that the fact is either good or bad. The common people ate food and wore clothes produced in the country; it does not follow that they got enough to eat, or that the clothes they wore gave adequate protection against the weather. At the present day they are more dependent for their clothes on other parts of the world ; the change may be either a good thing or a bad, and sometimes it is not very easy to say which is true, but such dis- cussions are altogether irrelevant to my present purpose, which is to indicate the extent to which the term self-supporting is applicable. For this purpose we may class the principal goods for consumption very roughly as food, clothes, metal-ware, and articles of luxury or display, while goods required for production may be divided into raw materials, and tools or machinery. The country produced all the food and food- adjuncts which ordinary people required, though not always in sufficient quantities to satisfy all needs ; imports under this head were practically limited to fruit, spices, and stimulants.1 In the same way, all ordinary clothes were made in India, but silks, velvets, and broadcloths were imported from various parts of the world. Metals, on the other hand, were undoubtedly scarce, and while nearly all the metal-ware used was made up in the country, much of the raw material was imported. As for articles of luxury or display, while their production employed many Indian artisans, the prevail- ing taste for novelty secured a market for the first supplies of almost any article coming from abroad, though, from the nature of the case, it was not usually a large or durable market.1 Of goods required for production, there was no question of machinery at this time, and the tools used in India appear to have been locally produced. Imported materials included raw silk, ivory, coral, tortoise-shell, amber, and the like, in addition to the metals—gold and silver, lead, tin, zinc, and quicksilver, and, in some parts of the country, copper ; some minerals, such as borax and sulphur, were also imported for use in manufactures ; but with these exceptions, the industries pursued in India were based on the supplies of raw material afforded by the land. In the fol- lowing sections I endeavour to bring together the information available regarding, firstly, the exploitation of materials other than those yielded by agriculture ; and, secondly, the manu- facture of all kinds of consumers’ goods.
II. FORESTS AND FISHERIES
We have seen that in most parts of India, though not in all, the proportion of culturable land lying unoccupied was greater than now, and we may safely assume that it was usually covered by some form of forest growth. The literature of the period contains no hint of the existence of anything comparable to the methods of conservation and scientific exploitation which have been introduced during the course of the last century, and if there were any restrictions at all, they were in all probability limited to the exaction of dues by the central or local authorities. We can therefore form a general idea of the condition of the forests in the time of Akbar, if we draw on our know- ledge of the state of unregulated forests in India at the present day, and allow for the difference in the means of transport: inaccessible forests can have yielded no income, and inaccessibility was more common than now, while forests within reach of towns or villages furnished the inhabitants with timber, fuel, and minor produce on a scale which, roughly speaking, varied inversely with the pressure of the population. Such instances as we get of particular forms of produce having acquired a reputation in the markets fall in with this view: the bamboos of Bengal, which were in demand for fitting out ships, could be transported cheaply by the waterways of the country, while the teak of the Western Ghats was within reach of the sea-coast where large vessels were built, or it would be more accurate to say that ship-building was carried on at those places on the coast where suitable timber was avail- able in sufficient quantities.
When we try to form an idea of the income derived by the country from forest produce, we find that it must be the resultant of various tendencies acting in different directions. Since there was more forest and less cultivation, we may be sure that a larger proportion of the rural population enjoyed an unrestricted supply of such produce than is now the case, and probably the difference was sufficient to justify the conclusion that the rural population as a whole was in this respect better off. On the other hand, the cities and towns probably had no greater facilities than now, for though forests may have been nearer, the means of transport were very much worse, nor had they the benefit of produce obtained from distant areas by organised exploitation. Against the advantage enjoyed by the rural population must be set the damage caused to their crops by the wild animals dwelling in the forests : every peasant who had unrestricted access to a supply of produce had his fields open to injury from this cause, and readers who have practical experience of the matter will probably agree that on balance there was no great advantage either way. In this case therefore, as with the yield of agriculture, while we cannot say definitely that the average income per head was greater, or was less, in Akbar’s time than now, we can be fairly confident that, taking the country as a whole, it was of somewhere about the same order of magnitude.
A somewhat similar conclusion may be formed regarding the income from fisheries. The Ain-i Akbari tells us that fish formed an important part of the people’s food in Bengal and Orissa, and also in Sind, and various travellers record that its use was common in the south of India, and that it was some- times dried and salted for provisioning ships. Fish-oil was prepared in Sind, the use of fish-manure was established in Gujarat when Thévenot visited Surat in 1666, and, speaking generally, it may be reasonably assumed that the fisheries were conducted very much on the lines familiar at the present day. There may be some basis of truth for the popular complaint that the yield of the rivers has declined relatively to the demand, the extent of which depends on the numbers of the population within reach of the supply, and it is also possible that there has been some reduction in the quantity obtained from the fisheries on the coast, although their potential yield is practically inexhaustible ; but if we bear in mind that the fish-eating population—the people to whom fish is a staple article of diet and not merely a luxury—form only a fraction of the total population of the country, it becomes highly improbable that the average income of the whole number can have been affected materially by any decrease in the yield of fisheries which may have occurred.
A few words may be added regarding the pearl-fishery of Southern India, which was one of the correct topics to be noticed by every visitor to that part of the country. The exact locality of the fishery varied from time to time, being situated in some years in Indian waters and in others off the coast of Ceylon, but wherever it was held it attracted a large crowd, stated by a missionary visitor to amount to as many as 60,000 persons. It may be gathered from the extant descrip- tions that the enterprise was highly speculative, as is still the case, but I have found no record which throws any light on its economic importance. Pearls were of course greatly in demand among the upper classes, but Indian waters had nothing approaching to a monopoly of their production, as they were imported from various places, particularly from the Persian Gulf, and the income derived from the enterprise, while it was important to the men engaged, cannot have been sufficient to make a material difference to the population of the whole country.
III. MINES AND MINERALS
As will have been gathered from the last section, we possess few records throwing direct light on the spontaneous animal and vegetable products of India at this period, but somewhat more detailed information is available regarding the exploitation of minerals, a subject which was considered to be of interest by the compiler of the Ain-i Akbari. Looking first at the precious metals, the production of gold appears to have been negligible : the silence of visitors to the south may be taken as conclusive evidence that the Mysore goldfields were not worked at this time, and Abul Fazl tells only of the metal being washed from river-sand in some parts of Northern India, a practice which still survives. Silver, too, was obtained in only trifling quantities : Abul Fazl states that a mine existed in the province of Agra, but that it did not pay for working ; and apart from this theoretical source there are only vague statements that the metal was obtained by washing in river-beds, and that it was mined in " the mountains of Kumaun," a region of which the Mogul administration possessed very little definite knowledge.
The other metals chiefly consumed in India were quick- silver, tin, lead, zinc, copper, and iron. The first four of these were mainly imported,1 though small quantities of lead and zinc were produced in Rajputana ; the south of India obtained copper from overseas, but the north depended on supplies locally mined, while practically the whole country had to rely on its own resources in regard to iron. In order to form a just idea of the production of these two metals, it is necessary to remember that they do not occur in India in the metallic state, and that the reduction of the ores requires in both cases a large quantity of fuel, the supply of which is, in fact, one of the governing factors of the industry. Coal was not mined in India at this period, and the production of iron and copper was limited by the quantity of wood available within reach of the places where the existence of ores was known. The practical effect of this limit was demonstrated in various parts of India during the last century, when attempts were made to produce iron on a comparatively large scale : the industry usually made some headway at first, but the local supplies of fuel were soon exhausted, and the increasing cost of carriage gradually rendered the enterprise unprofitable. In these cases the point at which profits vanished was determined by the price at which imported metals could be sold in competing markets, and the limit was thus reached more quickly than would have been the case in the earlier period when importa- tion was more costly ; but the limit is nevertheless a hard fact which producers must have always been compelled to take into account ; if they worked on a large scale, the fuel supply would soon become inadequate, and operations would have to be suspended until the trees had time to grow, while if production was kept down to the amount justified by the annual growth of fuel in the vicinity it can never have been conducted on any but the smallest scale. The descriptions available of the old workings and of the industry as it survived during the last century appear to me to prove that these limitations had been actually felt: the industry was not organised on a large scale, but individuals set up small furnaces in places where ore and fuel were available and abandoned them when the supply of either necessary failed.1 In cases where the supply of ore ran short, the abandonment would of course be permanent, but where ore was abundant, particular localities would be deserted for a time and left until the jungle should grow.2 The industry was thus diffused rather than concentrated, inefficient when judged by modern standards, and altogether unsuited to attract capitalist enterprise, but nevertheless it formed in the aggregate an important item in the production of the country.
In the case of copper, we have to distinguish, as has already been indicated, between the north of India and the south. I have found no record of the metal having been produced at this period in the territories of Bombay, Madras, or Hyderabad, nor do I know of extensive old workings in those parts of the country, while the numerous references to its importation on both coasts show that the trade was firmly established, even the supply of copper coins depending on material brought from China. On the other hand, I have found no reference to imports by sea into Northern India, either through Bengal or by way of the Gulf of Cambay; Tavernier’s account of the variations in the ratio of exchange between copper and silver coins indicates that in his time the principal sources of the former metal were nearer to Agra and Delhi than to the coast, and, apart from the evidence of old workings, we have the definite statements of Abul Fazl as to the existence of mines in various parts of the country. The sources which he indicates are, first, the Himalayas, and, second, certain localities which are now included in Rajputana: traces of old workings are numerous in these portions of the country, while they are found also on an extensive scale in parts of Chota Nagpur and Bundelkhand, and it is not improbable that these latter areas contributed to the supply in Akbar’s time, since Abul Fazl’s account of them is obviously based on very imperfect knowledge, and his silence in the matter is not conclusive. Rajputana seems, however, to have been the principal source at this period.
As regards the production of copper, there is no quantitative information, but we know that the metal was exceedingly costly. Akbar’s mint paid 1044 dams for one maund, and at this rate a pound of copper would have cost the peasant about 84 lb. of wheat, whereas in the years 1910-12 the price in terms of wheat was about 16 lb., so that any one whose income was earned in agricultural produce had to pay at least five times the present price for articles made of the metal. We may be sure that this price was in practice prohibitive, and that the lower classes of Northern India exerted no effective demand for the metal, and consequently that the production was very small, compared to what it would have been if brass and copper vessels had been as generally used as at the present day. We may also be sure that the price was not materially lower in the south than in the north, for if it had been, importers would have diverted their supplies from the west coast ports to those of Cambay, an operation perfectly feasible in the commercial conditions of the period, and we thus arrive at the conclusion that in India as a whole goods made of copper and brass must in the sixteenth century have taken rank definitely as expensive luxuries instead of being conventional necessaries for the great majority of the population.
The production of iron was much more widely diffused than that of copper, and I think the output must have been much larger. There is no evidence that any large part of India depended on imports : 1 the ores are widely distributed, and traces of old workings are found in almost every part of the country except in the alluvial plains; there was a regular, though not a large, export from the south of India, while in the north we have Abul Fazl’s authority for the statement that production was carried on in the Mogul provinces of Bengal, Allahabad, Agra, Berar, Gujarat, Delhi, and Kashmir. The quality of the output was frequently high, and, in the south at least, the artisans had a method of making steel, which was, I think, the main form of export from the western coast. As to the quantity produced, we can form only a vague idea. Many of the modern uses of the metal were of course unknown, and we should not expect to find iron bridges, corrugated roofs, wire fencing, travelling trunks, or similar commodities in the India of Akbar’s time : Indian construc- tional methods 1 are distinguished by the absence or economy of iron, and I take it that the output was devoted mainly to the manufacture of tools, implements, and arms, or such accessories as nails, screws, and horse-shoes. Abul Fazl gives a few data as to the cost of some of these articles in Northern India, but in most cases it is impossible to make a satisfactory comparison; horse-shoes, for instance, cost 10 dams for a set, but the amount of metal they contained is not specified, while in regard to such articles as nails or screws the cost of workmanship is an important but undetermined factor in the price. The only articles for which a comparison can be safely made are picket-pegs, which were valued at three dams per ser; this means that at the Imperial Court 1 lb. of iron in this form was worth 10 lb. of wheat, while about the year 1914 the value was just over 3 lb., and on this basis Akbar’s peasants had to pay more than three times as much grain as their modern successors for the iron they required for tools and implements. The remaining figures given by Abul Fazl bear out the general conclusion that iron was dear, though not relatively so dear as copper, and we must regard the metal, not indeed as a luxury, but as a costly necessity in the use of which the utmost economy was requisite.
Of minerals other than the metals the most important at this period were salt and diamonds ; and we may consider the latter first, not as being the more valuable product, but because the information which we possess regarding the methods of production supplements what has just been said of the mining industry, and enables us to form some idea of the conditions of employment. Diamonds, like the ores worked in India, are found near the surface of the ground, but their recovery does not involve the consumption of fuel, and conse- quently the industry is not subject to the limitation which, as we have seen, operated in the case of copper and iron ; accordingly, we find that very large numbers of labourers were collected at the diamond-fields, and we may take it that the organisation adopted there represents the highest stage reached by the industry of the period. This organisation is described most fully by Tavernier, who, as an expert jeweller, was particularly interested in the subject, and though his account dates from the middle of the seventeenth century, we may accept its main features as having persisted at least from the period with which we are concerned. At this time there were two diamond-fields in the Deccan, in one of which the diamonds were found in sandy soil, which required merely to be sifted and searched, while in the other the soil contained clay, which had to be washed away before these processes could be carried out ; the latter obviously required a larger labour force, and is therefore the more useful illustration of the contemporary industrial system. According to Tavernier’s description, there was nothing approaching to organisation on a large scale : a merchant marked out a plot or " claim " of about half an acre in size, and employed a number of labourers, which may occasionally have been as high as 300.1
The surface soil was dug out by men, and carried by women and children to a walled enclosure, where it was drenched with water brought in earthen pots; the slime was then allowed to run out through apertures in the walls; the residual sand was winnowed when dry with baskets such as were used at harvest; the coarser matter was thrown on the ground and beaten with wooden stamps, and finally the diamonds were picked out by hand. The whole process can be visualised at once by any one who has experience of Indian methods of work: there was a large crowd of workers, which Tavernier (perhaps with some exaggeration) puts at more than 60,000, but it consisted of a great number of working units, which individually were small, and each entirely independent of the others. The wages paid struck Tavernier as very low; even a skilled man earned, he says, only three pagodas in a year, and the temptation to steal was so great that there would be twelve or fifteen watchers to fifty labourers. Taking the pagoda at the value indicated in a previous chapter, the rate of earnings is less than a rupee a month, which cannot have been more than a bare subsistence-allowance; but a bonus was paid for the discovery of valuable stones, and probably the hope of a fortunate chance, or a fortunate theft, was prominent among the motives which attracted labourers to the field. Low as the wages were, it is obvious that in the aggregate large sums were disbursed, and since this field had in Tavernier’s time been worked for about a century, we must conclude that on the whole it paid expenses, though (as commonly happens in speculative industries) the average rate of profit was probably very small; taking the wages bill as a basis, and making a generous allowance for other expenses, royalties, and profits, it is just barely possible that, when employment was at the maximum, the yield of all the sources taken together might have been worth as much as 20 lakhs of rupees yearly in the currency of the time. This figure is a maximum, and may well be an over-statement; but in any case the industry was of more than local importance, and the conditions in which it was carried on indicate an economic position by no means dissimilar from that which now exists— a dense population with a low standard of life, attracted in large numbers to an industry where the work was of a familiar type, and content with low regular wages, which might be supplemented as the result of some fortunate accident.
The third source of diamonds described by Tavernier was of much less importance. In this case the gems might be found in the sandy bed of a river in Chota Nagpur, and the local population turned out and searched the sand annually from January or February onwards, that is to say, when the river was low and the autumn crops had been harvested; the work would thus come under the head of spare-time employ- ment, and operations would be suspended after a few months, as they would obviously be impracticable from the beginning of the rains. The yield appears to have been very much smaller than that of the regular diamond-fields farther south, but doubtless the chance of a lucky find was sufficient to attract seekers to the number of 8000 which Tavernier mentions.
The production of salt was important at this period, and so far as I know it was not supplemented by importation on any considerable scale. The sources were those which are still familiar, the Sambhar lake, the Punjab mines, and the water of the sea, and the volume of internal trade appears to have been substantial. As in the case of the metals, we have no direct information as to the quantity produced, but can obtain some idea of its magnitude from a comparison of prices. Measured in terms of food-grains, a pound of salt was 2 1/4 times as dear in the vicinity of Akbar’s Court as in Northern India about the year 1914, and since the Court was usually located near the main sources of supply, we may infer that the average price throughout the country was somewhat higher. The experience of the present century has shown that reductions in price lead to a substantial increase in con- sumption, and it is therefore probable that the relatively high price prevailing in Akbar’s time meant a much smaller consumption per head than that to which the country is now accustomed. Opinions may differ on the question whether the larger consumption in modern times is fully accounted for by the quantity imported, but in any case it is obvious that production per head cannot have been much greater under Akbar, and possibly it was even less.
Of other mineral products in the same grade as salt, we know that saltpetre was produced, but it was at this time of very little importance compared with its position later on when the export trade to Europe had come into existence. Various other minerals, such as borax, alum, and ochres, were produced on a scale which was small, but sufficed, when supplemented by imports, to meet the industrial demand of the country. Among minerals of lower grade, building-stone was quarried for local use in most places where it existed, but the conditions of transport must have prohibited the development of larger markets, and the only case I have noticed of stone being carried to a distance is the use of Bassein stone at Goa, whither it was taken by sea. The use of broken stone for road metal and railway ballast is of course quite modern.
We may now attempt a rough comparison of Indian mineral production in Akbar’s time and at the present day. The decreases are to be found under diamonds, iron, copper, and a variety of less important items, lead and zinc, borax, ochres, etc. I have put the loss under diamonds at the extreme figure of twenty lakhs of contemporary rupees. The purchas- ing power of the rupee at this time and place is doubtful, but it was almost certainly less than at Akbar’s Court, so that the maximum loss under this head is substantially less than a crore of rupees (modern currency). For the other items, it does not appear possible to make a quantitative estimate, but we have seen that copper was a rarity, and, while its value was high, the quantity produced must have been very small indeed when compared with the consumption at the present day. Comparison in the case of iron is com- plicated by the very great expansion in production during the last few years; it is probable that the present output already approaches, if it has not yet reached, the yield in Akbar’s times, but looking at the years about 1912, we must recognise that there had been a substantial decrease. Against these losses have to be set the entirely new production of coal, gold, manganese, and minor minerals, amounting before the War to an annual aggregate of about 7 1/2 million pounds sterling,$^1$ apart from the increase under saltpetre, and the large development of the stone quarries. Deducting from this figure the loss estimated under diamonds, and setting off minor losses against minor gains, we have still an aggregate compared with which the old production of copper and the excess of the old production of iron become insignificant, and after making allowance for the increase of population which has occurred during the last three centuries, the conclusion appears to be indisputable that the average income per head derived from mineral production, while it is still unduly low, is substantially greater than it was in Akbar’s time.
IV. AGRICULTURAL MANUFACTURES
A superficial study of the contemporary authorities is apt to produce the impression that at the close of the sixteenth century India was characterised by widespread and diversified manufacturing activity. In some respects this impression is misleading ; the routes followed by travellers were compara- tively few, and there are large tracts of territory of which we possess no account, so that we are entitled to infer only that industries had developed along certain main lines of transport, such as the Ganges and the Indus, or the roads from Agra to Lahore and to the west coast. Further analysis shows that along these routes industries were to a large extent localised in a comparatively small number of towns and cities, and the frequently repeated descriptions of the activities of centres like Ahmadabad or Lahore are apt to be applied to a much larger area than is warranted by the facts. Making every allowance for these sources of error, it is still to my mind indisputable that in the matter of industry India was more advanced relatively to Western Europe than she is to-day ; the recurring superlatives of travellers may fairly be allowed to possess so much of positive value, when supported by the concrete facts which their statements disclose. The relative rank of India among the nations is, however, a matter of very little importance for my present purpose, and my only object in alluding to it is to emphasise a distinction which is frequently overlooked. To recognise that India has lost ground relatively to Western countries is an entirely different thing from saying that the income she derives from industries has decreased, for it is quite possible that the country may be receiving a much larger supply of useful commodities even though the progress of other nations has been greater than hers. Whether the industrial income measured in com- modities has increased or decreased relatively to the population in the course of the last three centuries is a question to which a direct answer cannot be given offhand, but we can approach it by a consideration of the evidence which is available regard- ing the nature and extent of the industries which were carried on at the earlier period. For this purpose some scheme of classification is required, and I shall deal in order with agri- cultural manufactures, handicrafts generally, shipbuilding and other forms of transport production, and lastly, and most important of all, the various textile industries.
The first of these classes comprises the different industries by which agricultural produce is worked up for consumption : in the aggregate they are of great industrial importance, seeing that they transform a large part of the raw material yielded by the land, whether grain, oil-seeds or sugar, fibres, drugs or dye-stuffs, and it is unfortunate for our present purpose that in Akbar’s time, as at the present day, they commonly received less than their due share of attention compared with the more noticeable productions of artisans employed on other kinds of raw material.
Taking first the utilisation of food-grains, I think it is safe to conclude that there was practically no organised flour- milling industry in the sixteenth century : I have found no suggestion of anything of the kind, and I take it that the preparation of flour and meal was in general a purely domestic undertaking, as it still commonly is at the present day. It is possible that a certain amount of grain was milled at Surat and other ports in connection with the provisioning of ships, and at inland towns to meet the needs of travellers and visitors, but if there was any such concentration of the industry, the organisation can only have been rudimentary, consisting probably of a certain number of women using ordinary domestic hand-mills under the control of a grain-merchant. Similarly in the case of sugar, the bulk of the raw material must have been worked up by the cultivator for consumption in the form of gur or jaggery.1 The production of sugar in the modern sense of the word was, however, practised in some parts of India. Bengal was the principal seat of the industry, and, as we have already seen, the product was carried round the coast to Malabar, and up the Ganges to the Mogul capital ; I have found no description of the method of manufacture, but it is spoken of as “ powder sugar,” which probably means that it was of the fine-grained type still familiar in Northern India. This type of sugar was also procurable in quantity at Ahmadabad, while the more costly form spoken of as candy appears to have come mainly from the vicinity of Lahore, but was also produced in some other towns. The difference in value between the two types was considerable : Abul Fazl gives the prices at Court as 128 dams for a maund of powder and 220 dams for a maund of candy, so we may take it that the former was the standard type, and the latter a special product. Even the cheaper kind was, however, costly when judged by modern prices, since, allowing for the change in purchasing power, the rate quoted is equivalent to from 25 to 30 rupees for a modern maund, a price which would put the commodity beyond the reach of the poorer classes ; we may therefore conclude that white sugar was a luxury in Akbar’s time, and that the production was relatively much less than at present, the poorer classes and the confectioners who catered for them making use only of gur.1
The industry of oil-pressing was probably carried on by the exceedingly primitive methods still to be seen, but I have found nothing which can be called a description of the processes employed. I conjecture that this is one of the industries which have declined since Akbar’s time, when mineral oil was unknown, but there appear to be no data to indicate the extent of the change which has taken place. Nor is it possible to speak with certainty regarding cotton-ginning on a commercial scale. Presumably both ginning and spinning were usually carried on by the grower and his family, but an observation recorded by Thévenot half a century later indicates that in some localities specialisation had already begun ; near Ahmadabad he met a gang of workmen who had no fixed home but travelled from village to village, ginning and cleaning cotton, or doing any other work that was available, and we may infer that the seventeenth century was beginning to experience the need which has now been effectively met by the introduction of ginning mills throughout the principal cotton-tracts. The extent of this industry does not require discussion in this place, as it is covered by what is said further on regarding the production of cloth.
Tobacco manufacture can scarcely have started in India during Akbar’s reign. The plant was unknown to his revenue officers, and consequently cannot have been grown to any extent during the sixteenth century. It is believed to have reached India through the agency of the Portuguese, and was established first in the province of Gujarat, where the leaf was obtainable in the year 1613, but the processes of manufacture were not understood. The preparation of opium was an old-established art both in Behar and in Malwa. The methods of making indigo practised at Biana, the main centre of production in Northern India, are described by William Finch, and are substantially the same as those which were followed when the modern industry was at its height, though there have been various changes in organisa- tion and in detail.1
A few words may be said in this place regarding the pro- duction of intoxicating liquors. The industry was officially discouraged by the Mogul Emperors: Akbar ordered the Kotwals, or city-governors, to restrict it so far as this could be done without interfering with the privacy of domestic life, and Jahangir—himself a heavy drinker—prohibited it altogether, but probably this latter regulation was not seriously meant, and in any case it was not carried out.2 Spirits and fermented liquors were easily procurable throughout the country, as is apparent from the frequent references in the accounts of European travellers. In the south they were prepared mainly from the sap of the palm-tree, while the mahua-flower and molasses were used farther north; the materials employed in these areas were thus those which are still in use, and we may infer that the processes were of the types which are now being transformed under the guidance of the excise administration.
Taking this group of industries as a whole, I do not think there are adequate grounds for concluding that the income relatively to the population differed very materially from that which is now obtained. No tobacco was made, and less white sugar, but probably the amount of oil expressed was greater, and it is possible that the consumption of drugs and intoxi- cating liquor may have been larger than in these days of severe restrictions and heavy excise-duties. There can be no doubt that during the nineteenth century much more indigo was made than in Akbar’s time, but production had fallen to a very low figure in the years immediately before the War, which I have taken as the period for comparison, and it is possible that the industry was no greater then than at the end of the sixteenth century. If we set off the gains against the losses, we may reach the opinion that India as a whole was slightly better off, or slightly worse off, under Akbar than now, but I cannot detect in the information available any reasons for holding that a material economic change has occurred in the interval.
V. HANDICRAFTS IN GENERAL
Turning now to the second group of manufactures, the miscellaneous handicrafts (excluding textiles), the general impression left by the accounts of travellers is one of variety and skill, especially in imitation, rather than economic import- ance. Many of the craftsmen whose work receives most notice—jewellers, silversmiths, workers in ivory, coral, amber, or tortoise-shell, druggists, perfumers, and others—catered for an exceedingly narrow market, the extravagant ruling classes and a small and fluctuating demand on the part of foreigners: the commodities they produced were noteworthy, and, in some cases, of artistic merit,1 but the volume of their industry was not great, and a large part of the value of their products was due to the cost of material rather than to the processes applied.
The products intended for larger markets deserve somewhat more detailed notice. Taking first the metal industries, we have seen in a previous section that articles made of copper and its alloys must have been luxuries, the price of the metal being almost prohibitive, and the evidence to be examined in a subsequent chapter regarding the standard of life suggests that such articles were in fact rarely owned by the poorer classes of the population; a working household might possess a small drinking-vessel, but large jars and dishes must have been beyond their reach. It is not surprising, therefore, that we should be told practically nothing about the industry, which relatively to the population must have been very much smaller than at the present day. The position in regard to iron goods was also governed by the high cost of the metal: small articles were in common use, but heavy goods were practically unknown, and the amount of material handled must, relatively to the population, have been comparatively small. A substantial part of the demand came from the makers of swords and other arms, which were carried by large numbers of people, and there can be no doubt that the private manufacture of weapons has declined, but against this must be set off the modern output of the State factories and arsenals, which is very much greater than that of Akbar’s workshops. Taking into account also the large quantities of heavy goods now produced by the foundries and iron-works established throughout the country, it appears to be probable that the industry as a whole yields a substantially higher income than was obtained in the sixteenth century.
The development of wood-working was not, so far as I can judge, retarded by the high cost of the raw material in the same way as the metal industries which have just been considered: the supply of particular qualities of timber may have been restricted by difficulties of transport, but it is probable that, with large areas of uncultivated land, materials for ordinary purposes such as house-building or the manufacture of agri- cultural implements were somewhat more easily obtainable than now. Of the more highly developed branches of the industry, I have reserved the building of ships and conveyances for separate consideration, leaving furniture and cabinet- making to be dealt with here. There can be no doubt that the output of these branches was, relatively to population, much smaller than at the present day, when the middle classes have come into prominence, and, like the upper classes, have adopted Western fashions to such a large extent: even in the palaces of the rulers there was very little furniture to be seen, and I have not come across any mention of the existence of either chair or table except among the Portuguese, or possibly among the Moslem merchants on the coast. Bedsteads, chests, and stools practically make up the list of bulky goods, while smaller articles such as ornamental boxes were also in demand. The Portuguese obtained most of their requirements from the ports on the Gulf of Cambay, and Pyrard mentions the import into Goa of lacquered bedsteads, inlaid cabinets, and similar goods. The houses of the Moslem merchants on the west coast were not in all cases so bare as those of other Indians, for Barbosa mentions that at Rander near Surat they were well kept and well furnished, but with these exceptions the absence of furniture appears to have been characteristic of the whole country, and, speaking generally, it may be said that the wood-working industry was limited by the absence of demand for its products rather than by any scarcity of material.
Leather goods receive little notice from the authorities available for this period, and the subject has to be approached indirectly. It is clear that the extensive export of hides and the import of various finished articles are quite modern phenomena, and that, in the time of Akbar, India as a whole was self-contained in this branch of industry. Now in the conditions which have prevailed since this period it is probable that the potential supply of hides and skins has varied roughly with the size of the agricultural population, and on this basis it may be contended that the leather industry must have been relatively more productive than at present, because in the absence of exports the quantity of raw material was greater, while no needs were met by imported goods. The validity of this argument depends on the truth of the underlying assumption that the available supply of hides was made into leather; if owing to the absence of effective demand a substantial portion was left unused, the production might be much smaller relatively to population than it is to-day, and I am inclined to think that this was actually the case. At the present day the bulk of the leather used in the country is devoted to the manufacture of boots and shoes, well-buckets, and harness and saddlery; compared with these main groups the rest of the production is insignificant, while I have been unable to discover any case of importance in which the use of leather has been discontinued since Akbar’s time. If, there- fore, all the raw material in the country was used, there must have been a relatively much greater consumption of some or all of the articles I have named, and of this I can find no trace. Foreign observers rarely say anything about the common people wearing shoes ; discussion of the evidence they offer on this point will find a more appropriate place in a subsequent chapter, but I may anticipate the conclusion to which it leads, which is that in all probability shoes were less commonly worn than at the present time.1 There is no reason to suppose that irrigation by means of buckets was relatively more common than now, and in some parts of the country it was certainly much rarer, so that, on the whole, less leather was required for this purpose. As regards harness and saddlery, the Ain-i Akbari gives very full details of the articles used in the Imperial stables, and it is remarkable how rarely leather finds a place in the enumeration : saddles were made mainly of cloth, and halters of rope ; horses were seldom used for driving, and the harness of oxen—at that period the principal draught animals —has even now very little leather in it. Even, therefore, if more animals were employed than now, a point which is by no means certain, it does not follow that more leather was used in their equipment ; its use is very largely a recent develop- ment, dating in fact from the nineteenth century. Thus the main markets for leather goods were relatively to the popula- tion smaller than they are to-day, while exports were quite unimportant, and the conclusion appears to me to be justified that the industry as a whole was less extensive than at present, and that the modern export of the raw material represents, not the destruction of an ancient industry, but the utilisation of matter which had been wasted in the earlier period.
Paper was at this period coming gradually into use through- out Southern India. Early travellers in this part of the country notice that all writing was done on palm-leaves, and as late as 1625, when della Valle obtained a specimen manuscript, it was written for him on this material. Pyrard tells us that the Portuguese at Goa imported their supplies of paper partly from Europe, partly from China, and partly from the Cambay ports; I have not found any definite information about the source of the Cambay paper, but I think it may be safely assumed that it was made at various places throughout Northern India by the hand-processes which have not yet entirely disappeared. The quantity used was, however, very small. There was little education, and most of what there was stopped at the primary stage, and was probably conducted by methods such as still survive, in which very little paper is used; the art of printing had been introduced at a few places by missionaries during the sixteenth century, but it was not practised for secular purposes till a later period; paper was used in the public offices, by merchants for their accounts, and by scholars and caligraphists in manu- scripts, but there were no printed books, no newspapers, circulars or posters, very few letters; and the facts justify the conclusion that the production of articles of stationery was very small indeed.
The potter’s industry appears to have been on the same footing as at present, producing chiefly coarse earthenware for the common people, though a few localities may have possessed a certain reputation for somewhat superior goods; porcelain was freely used by Moslems, but it was imported from China, and was an item of some importance in the Eastern trade. If, as has been suggested above, metal vessels were comparatively little used by the bulk of the population, the market for earthen- ware must have been relatively larger, and the potters busier than now, and this inference is confirmed, so far at least as Northern India is concerned, by the extent to which the men of this caste are now found to be engaged in agriculture; the Indian industry is typically unprogressive and has suffered because consumers have been able to find preferable means of satisfying their wants.
As to the building industry, the use of brick and stone was probably less extensive than now. The masses built their houses of mud or reeds, and roofed them with thatch, or occasionally tiles ; the middle classes were almost insignifi- cant in numbers ; merchants were, as we have seen, averse from external display, and the upper classes, at least in Northern India, depended more largely on tents than on palaces. The consumption of bricks, stone, and timber in domestic architecture was therefore small when judged by the standard of the present day ; construction for industrial purposes did not exist ; and I can find no reason to think that the deficiency was made good by a more extensive programme of public works. Activity in this direction was spasmodic : a great work might occasionally be undertaken, and large quantities of material might be employed in its construction, but there was nothing like the modern organisation by which the State, the local authorities, and the railway administra- tions keep operations going steadily in every part of the country, and there can be no question that this system results over a series of years in the provision of a much larger amount of building than would be produced by the less systematic methods of an earlier age. Allowance must also be made for the time occupied in construction ; to take one instance, the fort and palace at Allahabad constitute a very large undertaking even when judged by modern standards, but the work went on for half a century or more, and the annual increment of commodities is thus reduced to a comparatively small amount. If, then, we set modern textile factories against ornamental tombs, we must conclude that relatively to population the building industry has increased ; we may regret that many of the modern buildings afford little scope for the display of taste and artistic skill, but we must at the same time recognise that from the economic standpoint they are much more useful than those of Akbar’s days.
So far, then, as this group of industries is concerned, it appears to be reasonably certain that the income of com- modities relatively to the population has substantially increased. There has probably been a decline in the produc- tion of pottery, the arms industry may have fallen off on balance, and (though no precise information is available) it is possible that the artistic crafts show a general reduction in output. On the other hand, we have seen reason to believe that relatively to numbers there has been a marked increase in the production of brass and copper goods, of iron goods other than arms, of articles made of wood, of paper and stationery, and of buildings of all descriptions except possibly the huts occupied by the poorer classes, while an increase in leather goods is more probable than a decrease. There can be no doubt how the balance stands between these two lists, and it is noteworthy that the changes tend uniformly in the direction of economic efficiency, seeing that nearly all the goods produced in increased quantities are either com- paratively durable commodities or are destined to be employed in production.
VI. PRODUCTION OF MEANS OF TRANSPORT
We now pass to a consideration of the production of means of transport, both of goods and of passengers, and since the last three centuries have seen a transfer of business from water to land, it is convenient to treat in one section the means of conveyance employed on both elements. It may be taken as certain that, relatively to population, the manufacture of vehicles for use on land was less important in Akbar’s time than at the present day. We have seen in a previous section that there was no wheeled traffic in India south of Golconda, while the descriptions of the roads farther north indicate that, while such traffic was possible, there were many difficulties in the way ; carts might be used in level country, but rivers and steep gradients were formidable obstacles, and the bulk of the heavy traffic was moved by means of pack animals, while carting was practised mainly in the case of valuable goods, such as treasure or indigo, where there were obvious objections to frequent loading and unloading. For passenger traffic, lighter carts drawn by trotting oxen were available in some parts of the country, but the palanquin was the more ordinary mode of conveyance. Horses or ponies were very rarely used for draught,1 and the familiar middle-class conveyances of the present day—the ekka and the gārī—appear to have been developed since Akbar’s time, the former from Indian, and the latter from European models. It is probable, therefore, that relatively to population there are now more road vehicles than there were, while if we take into account the work done in the various railway establishments, which in the years before the War employed over one hundred thousand hands in the construction and maintenance of rolling-stock, we shall arrive at a very substantial increment. To complete the account, we must reckon also the construction of railways and metalled roads, which had no counterpart in the sixteenth century, and there is thus a very large volume of new industry, against which the only set-off is the decline in the production of ships and boats.
This decline seems to me to be beyond question so far as the means of inland navigation are concerned. I have found no data regarding the Bengal waterways, where the develop- ment of the traffic in jute may have resulted in the mainten- ance, or even the extension, of the number of boats, but the river systems of the Ganges and the Indus certainly carried a much heavier traffic than they carry now. Fitch travelled from Agra to Bengal with a fleet of 180 boats ; the vessels available on the Jumna sufficed on occasion to transport Akbar’s enormous camp ; and the accounts which we possess of Lahore and Multan indicate that the Indus system was at least equally well provided. The boats in use were fairly large : at Lahore they were 60 tuns2 and upwards ; vessels fit for the coasting trade were built at that city and also at Allahabad ; some of the barges on the Jumna were of 100 tuns, while those on the Ganges ranged up to 400 or 500 tuns ; and it is clear that a considerable volume of traffic could be carried by these means. It does not, however, appear to be possible to form even a rough guess as to the number of boats in existence or as to the annual output. The size of a particular fleet may be misleading unless we know also the frequency with which similar fleets moved : the dangers of robbery on the waterways were very real ; probably merchants were willing to wait for a large party to travel by water, as was certainly the case on land ; and I think it would be a mistake to suppose that a fleet such such as Fitch mentions was often to be seen. All that can be said is that many more boats were built in Northern India, and that against them must be set off the much larger provision of means of land transport which is now made throughout the country. Taking into account the fact that there were only three important systems of waterways, and that the greater part of India lay far beyond their influence, it appears to me to be probable that the localised boat-building industry of Akbar’s time was of smaller relative importance than the road-carriage and railway rolling-stock industries now distributed over almost every portion of the country ; but even if the balance were equal, the modern production of railways and metalled roads indicates a large increase in favour of the present day.
The chief interest of the subject of this section concerns, however, the production of ships and boats on the sea-coast. Shipbuilding is at least as dependent as any other industry on convenience in assembling the necessary materials : it can be carried on only within reach of the sea, and on the coast it will be localised at those places where materials are most readily procurable. In modern times it is found in proximity to supplies of steel and fuel, but in the sixteenth century timber was the determining factor, and ships could be built only where suitable timber was available. It might therefore happen, as it happens now, that the commerce of a particular country might be carried in ships built elsewhere, and for our present purpose it is necessary to treat as a whole the shipping em- ployed in the Indian seas between the Straits of Malacca and the Cape of Good Hope ; some ships, mainly those belonging to the Portuguese, but also occasional visitors from beyond the Straits of Malacca,1 entered these seas from outside, but the bulk of the local commerce was carried in vessels constructed within these limits. Regarded from this standpoint, the shores of the Indian Ocean presented sharp contrasts: there were extensive stretches of coast, notably on the Red Sea, where shipbuilding was rendered impossible by the absence of the essential material; there were other stretches, such as East Africa and the east coast of India, where it could be carried on; and there were others again, such as the west coast and the vicinity of the Gulf of Martaban, where the proximity of teak forests constituted a very marked differential advantage.
The lack of timber on the shores of the Red Sea has a particular interest for India, because it was a factor of primary importance in determining the success of the Portuguese attempt to dominate the commerce of the Indian Ocean. The Portuguese met with no organised opposition so far as the coasts of India were concerned, but early in the sixteenth century their position was threatened seriously by a fleet which was built at Suez with materials carried overland from the Mediterranean, and later on, as the Turks advanced southwards in Arabia, they made other efforts to serve a similar purpose; about the year 1586 they endeavoured to secure a footing on the coast of East Africa with the express object of obtaining timber for shipbuilding, and somewhat later they made serious attempts to import material from Pegu and Sumatra. In both cases, however, the Portuguese were able to frustrate the designs of their enemies, and their sea-power remained unchallenged until the arrival of the Dutch: the history of India might have been materially different had the Turks been able to build a fleet sufficiently powerful to ensure the success of their ambitions.
I have found nothing to show that the resources of East Africa were extensively utilised at this period : coasting-craft were constructed there, and probably wherever else material could be had, but sea-going ships were not built—at least in sufficient numbers to attract the attention of travellers.1 As regards Pegu, the evidence of shipbuilding is not clear. A visitor in the year 1583 wrote that there were ample materials for building a fighting fleet, but that ships were not built for want of “ men to govern them, or to make them,” a statement which suggests a lack of skilled workmen ; on the other hand, the numerous channels of the delta were at that time full of boats of various types, which must have been built locally, and we may perhaps conclude that such talent as was available was devoted to building boats rather than than sea-going ships. There is also some room for doubt about the position at Martaban, but I believe that very few ships, if any, were built there about this period. A certain amount of building was carried on in Tenasserim and Sumatra, but the general attitude of the authorities suggests to me that (apart from the Portuguese trade to Europe) the great bulk of the commerce in the Indian seas was carried in ships built in India, and that most of these, and certainly all the large ones, were constructed on the west coast, not at any one centre, but at various ports or inlets within easy reach of the forests. It is practically certain that India also built all the small boats required for the coasting trade from Bengal as far as Sind, and the aggregate volume of shipping was therefore very great when measured by contemporary standards.
The vessels in ordinary use were of small capacity. As we shall see in the next chapter, the sea-going ships were probably of less than 200 tuns burden on the average, and the coasting craft perhaps 40 or 50 tuns, while the number of the former class was much less than is sometimes supposed, but a discussion of the “ tunnage ” in use, and of the annual output, must be postponed until the information available regarding sea-borne commerce has been considered. Mention may, however, be made of the great passenger ships, in the construc- tion of which India appears to have taken the lead. Writing in the fifteenth century, Conti had recorded the existence of ships of 1000 tuns,1 much larger than any with which he was familiar in the Mediterranean, and the early English visitors to Western India described vessels of even greater size, second only to the huge carracks built by the Portuguese. These Indian ships were used solely for the pilgrim-voyage to the Red Sea, and all told there were not, I think, more than half-a- dozen of them in existence at one time; they were not good sea- boats, and their draught was too great for most of the Indian harbours, but they represent a considerable achievement both in design and execution, and it is matter for regret that no account of their construction appears to have survived. To complete the tale of ships built in India, it must be added that the Portuguese constructed a few carracks at Bassein, on the coast north of Bombay, though the vessels of this class were usually built in Europe. Such enterprises must, however, be regarded as exceptional: the importance of the industry depended on the maintenance of an adequate supply of small ships for the sea-going trade, and small boats for moving goods along the coast.
VII. TEXTILE MANUFACTURES—SILK, WOOL, AND HAIR
We now come to the last and most important group of Indian manufactures, those which produced cloth from various fibres—from silk, wool, and hair, from hemp, jute, and cotton —and we will take these materials in the order stated. So much has been written regarding the decay of the Indian silk in- dustry that many people believe it to have been an important feature of the economic life of the country during an indefinite number of centuries. This view is, I think, exaggerated. Silk- weaving was a minor industry in the time of Akbar, and the subsequent decay on which so much stress has been laid did not affect the weaving industry so much as the production of the raw material, which had greatly expanded as the result of the European demand arising after Akbar’s death. Of the period about 1600 it may be affirmed that the export of manufactured goods was very small, that the home market was limited in size, and that it was supplied largely by the importation of foreign goods ; silk fabrics were woven in a certain number of centres, but the total output was small, and it is possible that a substantial proportion of the raw silk consumed in India was used for the production of the mixed goods which are still a feature of the hand-weaving industry.
That Indian exports were very small is indicated by the silence of the men who wrote about trade at this period, and who were careful to notice every article which seemed to be of interest to Europe, as silk certainly was. Barbosa, who gives more details regarding exports than any other writer, says that at the beginning of the century some silk goods went from Gujarat to the coast of East Africa and to Pegu, but he indicates no other market, and the remaining writers, with one exception, pass the subject over in silence. The exception is Varthema, whose book asserts that Gujarat supplied " all Persia, Tartary, Turkey, Syria, Barbary, Arabia, Ethiopia," and some other places, " with silk and cotton stuffs." The book bears many signs of loose writing, and I cannot believe that Varthema had discovered a vast trade in silk goods which was concealed from his contemporaries ; some of the countries named were, in fact, supplying silk stuffs to India at this time, and the most probable explanation of Varthema’s statement is that he did not discriminate accurately between silk and cotton goods. It is fairly certain that substantial quantities of cotton goods went from India to many of the countries named by him, and it is probable that some portion of these contained silk as well as cotton yarn, but in view of the evi- dence of Barbosa, supported by the silence of a long series of writers, I do not think that a large export of silk goods can have been a feature of the commerce of the period.
The home market was more important than the export trade, for silk stuffs were widely worn by the upper classes, and the fashion of the times prescribed an extensive wardrobe for any one who desired to move in good society. Abul Fazl records that the taste for fine materials had become general at Akbar’s Court, Barbosa had noted the prevalent use of silk by the nobles of Vijayanagar, and the luxury-demand was probably large relatively to the number of persons concerned. That number, however, was a very small fraction of the population of India, while there are clear indications that goods of foreign origin were preferred by many of the principal consumers. Silk goods of various kinds were brought to India from the Far East, from Central Asia, from Persia, and from the countries along the Eastern Mediterranean ; Barbosa tells us that some of the silks he saw in Vijayanagar came from China, and a large proportion of the stuffs enumerated by Abul Fazl are assigned by him to one or other of the countries named above. Thus the Indian industry had at most a share in a market of limited size.
It so happens that information has been preserved which enables us to form an idea of the amount of raw material consumed in the industry. Apart from the small quantity of fibre produced and worked up in Kashmir, the only production of which we read in India at this period was that of Bengal. Tavernier obtained figures of the output in this region in the middle of the seventeenth century, when the Dutch had established themselves at Kasimbazar and had worked up a considerable export trade. At that period the total output was about 2 1/2 million pounds,1 out of which one million pounds were worked up locally, 3/4 million were exported raw by the Dutch, and 3/4 million distributed over India, most of it going to Gujarat, but some being taken by merchants from Central Asia. The Dutch export was, of course, a new feature of the trade : their demand was unsatisfied, and it is probable that production had responded to it, and was greater than in Akbar’s lifetime. Making allowances, therefore, for minor sources which may have existed though they are not recorded, we cannot put the total yield about the year 1600 at more than 2 1/2 million pounds, a small portion of which may have beeu exported as raw material. The Indian supply was supplemented by imports, of which China was much the most important source, and the trade was closely controlled by the Portuguese. In the middle of the sixteenth century Garcia da Orta put the imports at a figure which may represent either 250,000 or 400,000 pounds ;1 Linschoten, writing about 1590, gives 400,000 pounds (3000 quintals), and this figure is probably official. The only other probable source of imports was Persia. Pyrard says that some raw silk was exported from Ormuz ; he does not say that it went to India, but if it did, the quantity cannot have been great ; the manufacturing centres of Gujarat, where Persian silk would naturally have gone, got their supplies chiefly from Bengal or China ; the quantity available in Persia was not abundant,2 and in the ordinary course of trade it went westward rather than eastward, for a few years after our period we find efforts being made to divert it from this course. We may therefore put the total imports to India at not more than half a million pounds, and the total consumption, imports and home pro- duction together, at about 3 million pounds of raw material as a maximum. The latest estimates I have seen of the present Indian production give a total of about 3 million pounds, while in the years before the War the imports (mainly from China) were about 2 1/2 million pounds, so that, after allowing for the export of nearly 1 1/2 millions, the industry consumed about 4 million pounds. On these figures the Indian industry taken as a whole has not kept pace with the probable increase in the population ; the relative decline is important for the industry itself, but it does not represent a large decrease in the average income of the entire population of India.
The silk-weaving industry was localised, as might be inferred from the nature of its products. Contemporary writers speak chiefly of the fabrics of Gujarat, notably of Cambay, Ahmadabad, and Pattan, while weaving was carried on also at Chaul, a few miles south of Bombay.1 It might be inferred from their descriptions that the industry depended wholly on material brought from China, but I think it is probable that supplies were also drawn from Bengal, as was certainly the case when Tavernier wrote. The same writer records a large local consumption in Bengal, and this too is probable, though travellers like Caesar Frederic or Fitch say very little on the subject. The production of Kashmir was worked up locally, but does not appear to have been extensive, and the industry was also carried on at Agra, Lahore, and probably some other cities, but such reputation as Indian silk goods possessed depended on the fabrics of Gujarat. It is noteworthy that Akbar devoted his attention to improving the production of the country. Abul Fazl states that the Emperor had studied the whole production of foreign stuffs, and that under his care foreign workmen had settled in India, silk-spinning had been brought to perfection, and the Imperial workshops furnished all the stuffs made in other countries; he names Lahore, Agra, Fatehpur, Ahmadabad, and Gujarat as having been affected by these measures. His account is coloured by conventional expressions of flattery, but is on the whole probable, and we may believe that patronage had led to an advance in the industry in its principal centre, Gujarat, as well as among the artisans directly dependent on the Court at the three northern capitals.
Apart from what was recognised as silk by travellers familiar with the material, Bengal produced at this period fabrics made of some fibre or fibres which they compared to silk. Pyrard speaks of the silk-herb; Linschoten of a kind of cloth spun from an herb; Caesar Frederic of cloth of herbs, “a kind of silk which groweth among the woods”; and Fitch of “cloth which is made of grass, which they call Yerua, it is like a silk.” What these fabrics were appears to be uncertain. I incline to the belief that the statements refer, in part at least, to the “wild” silks of Chota Nagpur, which are in fact gathered in the woods, and the origin of which might easily be attri- buted by oral tradition to a plant instead of an insect. It is also possible that some fibre such as rhea was at this period produced locally, but I know of no definite authority for this view. The evidence is not given at first-hand. Pyrard spent only a short time in Chittagong, and tells what he was able to hear ; Linschoten did not visit Bengal ; and the other authorities seem to have obtained their information in the towns. Whatever the fibre was, the manufacture of cloth appears to have been of at most local importance, and it need not be taken into account in estimating the produce of India as a whole.
Unlike silk, which is essentially a luxury-product, wool may be used for the clothing of both rich and poor, but, so far as contemporary authorities go, the poorer classes in India seem to have used very little of it at the period under consideration. I cannot recall a single instance in which a visitor to Northern India at this time mentions a woollen garment, or even a woollen blanket, being worn or used by an ordinary person, though several writers enter into particulars regarding cotton clothing, and would probably have recorded the fact if they had seen Indians wrapped in blankets during cold or wet weather as one sees them so frequently to-day. Common blankets, however, existed, for Abul Fazl includes them in his list of prices. The cheapest cost 10 dams, or say 46 pounds of wheat, in the markets near Akbar’s Court, while about the year 1914 a blanket could be got for about 23 pounds of wheat ; they were therefore substantially dearer at the earlier period. It is noteworthy that blankets were not supplied for even the best horses in Akbar’s stables, the covering sanctioned for them being made of wadded cotton-cloth, and no doubt the same practice, which is still familiar, was followed in other large establishments of the period.
We have fuller information regarding the use of woollen goods by the upper classes. Bright-coloured cloth, especially scarlet, was in demand everywhere for purposes of display; woollen clothing was naturally little used at the various Courts in Southern India, but it was worn in the north, and Akbar’s preference for dress of this material had doubtless an important influence on fashions at Agra and Lahore. In the case of wool, however, as of silk, much of the consumption of the upper classes consisted of imported goods : buyers sought for novelty in pattern and texture, and cloth from Italy, Turkey, and Persia was commonly sold in the principal cities. Importers found the market unsatisfactory owing to the vagaries of fashion, and the disappointments of the pioneer merchants of the East India Company are one of the most prominent topics in their reports : a few sample pieces of a new cloth would command a ready sale, but further shipments of similar patterns would be neglected, and there was no prospect of a steady off-take such as had at first been hoped for, while foreign patterns were quickly imitated by the local artisans. The number of these artisans does not appear to have been large enough to attract the notice of travellers : sheep were not an important element in the agriculture of the country, and apparently the Tibetan trade in raw wool had not been established,1 so that the supply of material was limited. The only reference I have found to its quality is Terry’s remark that the wool was generally very coarse.
Two special lines of manufacture deserve mention. The weaving of shawls, mainly from hair, belonged primarily to Kashmir, but under Akbar’s patronage the art had been at this time established in Lahore2 and perhaps elsewhere in the plains. Carpet-weaving also was fostered by Akbar, particularly at Agra and Lahore, but while some good specimens were produced, the output does not appear to have been large ; Persian carpets retained their hold on the market, and some years later English merchants found that the industry was unprogressive, and that the crafts- men were in bad circumstances. The weaving of superior goods, whether of wool or of hair, must indeed be regarded as a “ fancy-goods ” business, not bulking largely in the economic life of the country. No data exist for a precise estimate of the total production of goods made of wool and hair, but taking plain and fancy goods together, the industry was probably less important relatively to population than now ; the output of the large modern factories more than suffices to cover any decrease which may have occurred in the production of artisans.
VIII. TEXTILE MANUFACTURES—HEMP, JUTE, AND
COTTON
We now come to the coarser fibres grown in India as field- crops. Regarding hemp we have very little information. Sann-hemp (Crotolaria juncea) was assessed in all the Mogul provinces for which revenue rates are on record, and we may infer that it was grown over a wide area though not in great quantity, but there is nothing to suggest that it was exten- sively used in industry, and probably it was cultivated mainly for domestic purposes, as is still the case in most parts of the northern plains ; it is possible, however, that sacking made of this fibre was in local use, since the jute industry was at any rate not highly organised, and some coarse fabric must have been used for packing. Regarding jute, I have found only the single item of information that “ a kind of sackcloth ” was produced in the Bengal district of Ghoraghat (Rangpur), and it might be inferred that at this period jute was in Bengal what sann-hemp was farther west, a fibre grown for domestic use and of no industrial interest. There is some reason, however, for believing that in Akbar’s time jute occupied to some extent the place of cotton as well as hemp. We are told on good authority that rather more than a century ago “the poor in Eastern and Northern Bengal were mainly, if not entirely, clad in a sack-cloth of jute”; and while it is conceivable that these classes wore cotton in 1600, jute in 1800, and cotton again in 1900, it appears to be more probable that the wearing of sackcloth as the cheaper material was an old practice, and that it persisted until the change in relative values which took place in the nineteenth century, when jute became an important industrial crop and the price of cotton goods was lowered as the result of the introduction of machinery. I have been unable to trace anything in the literature of the period which throws any light on this question, and the possibility has to be reckoned with in any estimate of the production of cotton goods: the masses of Bengal at this period wore either jute or cotton, and the province was so densely populated that its clothing must represent a substantial proportion of the entire textile consumption of the country.
Even if we conclude that Bengal wore sackcloth, the fact remains that cotton-weaving was by far the most extensive industry in India, and I think it is fair to say that the aggregate production was one of the great facts of the industrial world of the year 1600. Its magnitude certainly impressed the Portuguese, as may be seen from the statement quoted by Pyrard, that “every one from the Cape of Good Hope to China, man and woman, is clothed from head to foot” in the products of Indian looms. This picturesque phrase contains some serious exaggerations, and perhaps the best way of realising the actual extent of the industry is to strip off these exaggerations one by one until we reach the underlying truth. First as regards the market in India itself, it is nearly correct to say that “every one” wore cloth produced in the country, though, as we have just seen, it is possible that some of the cloth was made of jute; woollens, silks, and velvets were indeed imported from Europe and elsewhere, but their use was confined to the upper classes, who were numerically of very little importance, and the bulk of the people certainly wore home-made clothes. It is, however, very far from the truth to say that they were clothed “from head to foot,” for the literature of the period shows that the clothing worn was exceedingly scanty, not merely in the warmer parts of India, where clothes are conventional necessaries, but in regions where they are absolutely required for efficiency. The evidence on this point will be considered in a subsequent chapter, and for the moment we must be content to correct Pyrard’s statement by saying that most people in India wore clothes made in the country, but that their clothing was very scanty, being usually limited to a loin-cloth.
The case is even stronger as regards most of the countries outside India. The nakedness of the people living between the Cape of Good Hope and China is proved by a mass of concurrent testimony which would take many pages to reproduce ; it was in fact the first and most obvious thing to attract the notice of European visitors, and it has to be borne in mind when we endeavour to estimate the importance of the various markets. Taking first the east coast of Africa, it is, I think, true that India supplied most or all of the clothes worn between Cape Gardafui and the Cape of Good Hope,1 but the number of people who wore clothes was very small : Pyrard himself says tersely that all these nations go naked, Friar Joanno and other travellers say the same thing in greater detail, and the imports, which are nowhere to my knowledge described as great, were required only for the Portuguese garrison, the Moslem merchants, the Chiefs, and such of the native inhabitants as had begun to feel the influences of civilisation. Farther north there was a market of real importance : Arabia took substantial quantities of piece- goods, which were carried also to Egypt and distributed thence through the Mediterranean, though it would, of course, be incorrect to say that “every one” in these parts wore Indian clothes. On the other side of India, the kingdoms which now form Burma supplied a second market of importance during part, at any rate, of the sixteenth century; probably it was at its worst when the century closed, owing to the devastation which resulted from the Siamese war. The third important market was furnished by Malacca and the group of islands of which it formed the com- mercial centre: ships going from India for spices or for the produce of China carried large quantities of piece-goods, which were either sold at Malacca or bartered locally for cloves or similar produce. Here, however, as in India, individuals wore very little, as a rule “nothing but a cloth about their middles,” and the extent of the market should not be over- estimated. Beyond the Straits the markets were of much less importance. I have found no record of any large export of cotton goods to China, and it is noteworthy that the Portu- guese, who knew this trade thoroughly, did not rely on piece- goods but carried silver from India to finance their purchases. There was some sale to Japan, but it does not appear to have been large, and an English factor, writing from that country in 1615, said that the people bought the sorts of Indian cloth carried there only “for the new and strange fashions and paintings thereof, being a people desiring change.” Lastly, it may be noted that Spanish ships occasionally carried Indian cloth from the far-Eastern markets to the Philippines, and perhaps to Mexico, but it is not probable that the quantity so handled was large.
We may then restate Pyrard’s picturesque and exaggerated account by saying that Indian looms had a practical monopoly of the home market for clothes, and in addition had three principal export markets, Arabia and beyond, Burma, and the Eastern Islands, besides minor outlets in various other parts of Asia and on the east coast of Africa. The production carried on to meet this demand was diffused throughout the country, but the distribution was not uniform: certain localities had acquired a reputation for special classes of goods, while facilities for carriage had led to considerable concentrations of the industry in particular areas either on the coast or along the inland waterways. Of the general diffusion there can be no doubt: wherever a European penetrated inland, he found cloth being produced along his route, and it is reasonable to conclude that the organisation, of which the remains are still visible, was at this period in full operation, and that all towns and most large villages produced the bulk of the cloth worn in the locality. Such everyday manufactures were not usually recorded in the Ain-i Akbari, and all the notices of weaving in this work appear to refer to goods which had obtained a wider reputation. Thus Abul Fazl noted the very fine muslin1 produced in Sonargaon, the predecessor of Dacca ; he spoke with approbation of the goods obtainable in places like Benares, Mau, or Agra in the Gangetic plain, and he recorded in general terms the excellence of the produce of Malwa, the Deccan, and Gujarat. Travellers and merchants notice in the same way the high quality of the goods obtainable in this town or in that, Lahore, Multan, Burhanpur, Golconda, and so on, and it is scarcely exaggerating the position to say that there was something approaching to a general market for superior qualities of cloth, though it must have been dominated by the high cost of transport.
Production for export was in the main drawn from four tracts, the Indus plain with its outlet at the port of Lahari Bandar, the country along the Gulf of Cambay and as far south as Dabul, the Coromandel coast, and Bengal. There were large communities of weavers at Lahore, Multan, Sukkur, Tatta, and other towns on the rivers of the Indus system, and much of their produce was exported by sea, some going towards Arabia, and the rest being taken at this period by the Portuguese. The Gulf of Cambay was the centre of the largest trade of all, drawing goods from Ahmadabad, Pattan, Baroda, Broach, Surat, and many smaller places, and exporting largely east as well as west : we meet Cambay cloth all down the coast of Africa, at Aden, and in the Persian Gulf ; but we hear of it also in Ceylon, in Pegu, in Malacca, all through the Islands, and as far as the coast of China. The eastern side of India had a narrower range, and I have not traced goods from the Coromandel coast in the Arabian Sea ; it exported, however, largely to Pegu, Malacca, and the Islands, markets which it shared with Cambay and also with the fourth region, Bengal. It is not easy to ascertain the distance from which the centres of export drew their supplies. The English merchants found that some kinds of piece-goods could be profitably bought at Agra for shipment from Surat, although this involved land transport of about 700 miles as the road lay ; but the instance is perhaps not altogether typical of ordinary conditions, for the merchants went to Agra primarily to sell their goods and to buy indigo, and the purchase of cloth was, so to speak, a " side-line " of their business in this part of the country. It is obvious that where waterways were available the radius of profitable export would be considerably greater than where land transit was required ; Lahore is about 700 miles from the sea in a direct line, and more by river, and on this showing the Bengal ports may have drawn their supplies from as far up-country as Allahabad. No small part of India, therefore, was within the export radius, but at the same time the impression left by the narratives of travellers and merchants is that both in Gujarat and on the Coromandel coast the bulk of the cloth exported was woven in the immediate vicinity of the ports.
In addition to cloth, certain miscellaneous goods were manufactured from cotton. We read of cotton carpets, coverlets, ropes, bed tapes, and some other commodities, and the aggregate outturn was doubtless substantial, but there are no means of estimating the amount. Reference may also be made here to the subsidiary industry of dyeing, which depended mainly on cotton goods, though it handled also other textiles. Coloured goods were in large demand, especi- ally for the countries which now form the province of Burma ; the indigenous vegetable dyes were used,1 and we may take it that the processes followed were in substance those which are still familiar, or which have recently been displaced by the products of European factories.
The details which have been given suffice to show that the cotton industry was at this period much the most important handicraft in India, but they do not enable us to form even a rough idea of the output of commodities. In order to approach this question, we require to take into account the data avail- able regarding the Indian consumption and the volume of the export trade: the facts as to consumption can best be studied in connection with the standard of life, while the export trade will be considered in the next chapter, and we shall then be in a position to approach the question of the output of cotton goods, which has a material bearing on the income of the country as a whole.
IX. INDUSTRIAL ORGANISATION
Our authorities tell us very little concerning the manner in which Indian industry was organised at the close of the sixteenth century, and it is reasonable to infer that they are silent because they had nothing interesting to say. To the writers of the country the existing system—whatever it might be—would be too familiar to call for mention, and a knowledge of it would be tacitly assumed. Visitors from Europe would almost certainly have indicated any salient features which struck them as novel, and if we find no such features recorded, the inference is that the Indian system resembled in essentials that which prevailed in Europe at the period, or, in other words, that the management of business had not been separated from the work of manufacture, and that production was carried on by artisans without superior capitalist direction. This inference is rendered practically certain by the persistence of the same system in those branches of industry which have not yet been organised on modern European lines, and it is entirely in accordance with the few incidental observations which contemporaries have left on record. These observations are naturally to be found in the early correspondence of foreign merchants, who had to adapt themselves to the markets in which they were endeavouring to find a footing, and to learn by experience the best ways of buying the goods they required. Their first lesson was the need for provision in advance: it was little good trying to get cargo when the ships had come into port, but merchants had to be left in the country, and kept in funds so that they could order what was wanted and pay the price in cash as the goods were delivered. They learned too that some artisans at least were unsatisfactory, for when they gave a trial order to carpet-weavers at Agra, they found “the tardiness, slowness, and poverty of the workmen” to be be so great as to prevent the establishment of a regular business. Elsewhere, however, they learned that buying through middlemen was less satisfactory than dealing direct with the artisans, and Sir Thomas Roe urged that attention should be paid to the piece-goods of Gujarat rather than of Sind and Bengal, on the specific ground that at Cambay or Broach “you may bespeak what sorts you will, what length, breadth, and fineness, and buy it from the loom at best hand.” Working on these lines, purchases might have to be made of unfinished goods: cloth was thus bought from the weavers, and then dyers or bleachers were employed to get it ready for the market. One factor gives a vivid glimpse of the working of this system in unfavourable circum- stances, reporting that when a consignment of Indian piece- goods was offered for sale somewhere near the Straits of Malacca, the cloth was found to be worn into holes owing to “the knavery of the washer that whites them, who to get opium hires them out a month to wear, whereby being foul he beats them to pieces to make them clean.” Apart from such incidents, the impression left by this early commercial correspondence is that production was carried on by inde- pendent artisans with scanty resources and compelled to market their goods immediately upon completion.
The prevalence of the artisan system of production does not imply that India was unable to undertake great enter- prises at this period. Such a suggestion can be immediately negatived by instances like the construction of the fort at Allahabad or the new capital at Fatehpur Sikri, as well as by the building of the great Portuguese carracks, each one of which must be regarded as a large undertaking when judged by the standard of the sixteenth century. The true implication I take to be that the organisation had to be brought specially into existence for each enterprise of the kind. A merchant who required a great ship could not apply to a firm which specialised in shipbuilding and would undertake all technical details : it is more probable that he had to arrange the whole business himself, from the felling of the timber onwards, or at least to organise the services of contractors for all the separate branches into which the undertaking was divided. The system of working a large number of small units was, as we have seen in a previous section, in operation at the diamond- fields in the seventeenth century ; contracting and sub- contracting are still familiar in modern India, and I know of no facts which indicate the existence of any more elaborate organisation in ordinary industry at this period. The germ of another system is, however, to be found in the Imperial workshops maintained at the Mogul capital. Bernier, writing about sixty years after our period, described what he saw in the palace at Delhi in the following terms : " Large halls are seen in many places called karkhanas or workshops for the artisans. In one hall embroiderers are busily employed, superintended by a master. In another you see the gold- smiths : in a third, painters : in a fourth, varnishers in lacquer- work : in a fifth, joiners, turners, tailors, and shoemakers : in a sixth, manufacturers of silk, brocade, and fine muslins." These workshops probably represent the later development of those karkhanas which Abul Fazl mentions occasionally, though he does not describe their organisation in detail : they marked a different stage of production, in that the artisans worked under direction, and that the supply of materials was presumably arranged for by the officials in charge ; and they offered the possibility of improvements in design and workmanship when, as was the case in Akbar’s time, the Emperor took a personal interest in the products. It is possible that private workshops of a similar type may have been in existence in the case of some handicrafts, though our authorities say nothing about them, but the quotations already given appear to show that in the ordinary weaving industry at least the artisans worked independently.
The economic position of artisans was not a topic likely to interest the writers who have described portions of the India of the sixteenth century, and there is practically no contemporary information on the subject. A few later visitors took the question into consideration. Bernier, writing to Colbert, said: “No artist can be expected to give his mind to his calling in the midst of a people who are either wretchedly poor, or who, if rich, assume an appearance of poverty, and who regard not the beauty and excellence but the cheapness of an article: a people whose grandees pay for a work of art considerably under its value and according to their own caprice.” He goes on to point out that the degrada- tion of artistic handicrafts was retarded by the influence of the Imperial workshops, and by the protection of a few powerful patrons, which resulted in the payment of rather higher wages, and adds: “I say rather higher wages, for it should not be inferred that the workman is held in esteem, or arrives at a state of independence. Nothing but sheer necessity or blows from a cudgel keeps him employed: he never can become rich, and he feels it no trifling matter if he have the means of satisfying the cravings of hunger and of covering his body with the coarsest garment. If money be gained, it does not in any measure go into his pocket, but only serves to increase the wealth of the merchant.” Bernier’s description is corroborated by what Thévenot was told about the same period of the state of the arts in Delhi, and it may fairly be read as showing that the artisan in the middle of the seventeenth century was substantially in the same position as the artisan of to-day, working mainly for the benefit of mer- chants or middlemen, and with no prospect of advancement except through the influence of a wealthy or powerful patron. Some light is thrown on the position of the most important class of artisans by the experience furnished by the Gujarat famine of 1630–31. At this period Gujarat had benefited by the expansion of trade resulting from the appearance of foreign buyers in the markets, and it is reasonable to suppose that the weavers and workers in allied industries were at least as prosperous as their fellows in other parts of India. Their economic position was, however, unsatisfactory when judged by the familiar test of resistance to the stress of famine, for contemporary accounts show the complete collapse of the industrial organisation. By November 1630 the weavers and other artisans had abandoned their homes in such numbers that cargo for the English ships could not be procured, and when rain fell in the following June the merchants found it necessary to dole out grain to the weavers at Broach and Baroda, a “ser of corn” being given for each piece of cloth delivered.
On the whole, then, it may be said that not long after Akbar’s death the economic position of the bulk of the artisans was at least as bad as at the present day: the workers were dependent on purchasers or middlemen for their current expenses and were destitute of means to face a period of stress. There is no direct evidence to show that this statement is applicable to the conditions which prevailed in the later years of Akbar’s reign, but in the absence of any suggestion of an economic revolution in the intervening period it is reasonable to conclude that the position was substantially the same, and that, while individuals might benefit from powerful and enlightened patronage, the great majority of the workers had nothing to hope for beyond the continuance of the conditions which afforded them a bare subsistence.
Two factors in particular—the cost of materials and the burden of taxation—may be noticed as having probably exercised a material influence conducing to this result. We have already seen that the cost of metals was high, and con- sequently the metal-worker without sufficient capital would be entirely in the hands of whoever might provide him with material. In Northern India at least the price of raw cotton was also high, for in the revenue assessment the crop was charged with rates which indicate that it was much more valuable than wheat, and where this relation held, the strength of the middleman or financier was obviously greater than now.
There is no reason to think that the middlemen of Akbar’s time had softer hearts than their modern successors, and since the conditions were favourable to exploitation, we need not question Bernier’s assertion that exploitation was the rule. As regards taxation on handicrafts, we have little direct information. Abul Fazl tells us that Akbar remitted a large number of imposts, including a tax on the various classes of artificers and also taxes on particular products or occupations, on blankets, tanning, manufacture of lime and so on; but, as we have seen in a previous chapter, it is not permissible to regard these remissions as permanent, and what was renounced by the State was often collected by subordinate authorities. The existence of such taxes would not ordinarily be noticed by foreign visitors. Terry states definitely that the Mogul had “officers that spread over his Empire to exact money out of all the labours of that people who make the curious manufactures,” and Tavernier mentions that at Benares the weavers had to take each piece of cloth to be stamped by the “farmer” (that is, the man who had contracted for the tax) before they could offer it for sale, but these are the only specific statements which I have found, though there are general assertions that all classes of the people paid taxes according to their means. While therefore there is not positive evidence to prove that artisans were heavily taxed in the latter years of Akbar’s reign, the circumstances of the period render it probable that they had to contribute to the revenue, and the possibility should be borne in mind in any attempt to estimate their economic position at the period.
X. URBAN WAGES
It will be convenient to bring together at this point a few items of information regarding the rates of wages which pre- vailed in India at this period. The subject is relevant to town life rather than to country life, for, if I have correctly interpreted the economic condition of the villages, the labour market in Akbar’s time was almost exclusively an urban phenomenon. The agricultural labourer was ordinarily a serf, receiving in return for his work an amount of commodities determined by custom, and about sufficient to keep him and his family alive: the village artisan was also, I take it, sup- ported by the customary payments which are now gradually dying out; and it was only in the towns and cities that men were hired to work and that rates of wages can be said to have existed. This view does not imply a complete separation between the urban and rural population: there was, in fact, a drift from the villages towards the army and the cities, composed partly of the natural overflow of population, and partly of men who had abandoned cultivation under stress of bad seasons or of an environment unfavourable in other ways. Bernier indicates that this drift to the cities had become important at the period when he travelled in India: " It happens," he wrote to Colbert, " that many of the peasantry, driven to despair by so execrable a tyranny, abandon the country, and seek a more tolerable mode of existence either in the towns or in camps." Probably this particular cause operated with greater force under Aurangzeb than under Akbar, but it is reasonable to conclude that the labouring population of the cities was reinforced by men from the country, and that a certain amount of competition existed, which would influence wages indirectly even if their amount was not the subject of direct and open bargaining. The statement made by Terry that men stood to be hired in the market-place, as they may be seen standing in some cities at the present day, indicates that a labour market did in fact exist; but very little information as to its working appears to be on record, and, apart from the particulars given by Abul Fazl, I have found only a few incidental notes of the rates at which travellers and merchants engaged domestic servants.
The facts given by Abul Fazl are important, but their significance is limited.1 He did not attempt to make a record of current rates of wages, but in describing the various depart- ments of the Imperial household he noted the rates of pay which had been approved by Akbar, or what would now be called the sanctioned scales of the establishment. It would be a mistake to regard these scales as showing the exact earnings of the Imperial servants : in some cases they had to pay for petty supplies, the actual value of which cannot be ascertained ; they were liable to frequent, and occasionally ferocious, fines ; and, unless Akbar’s Court was entirely unlike other Oriental establishments, they had to pay a portion of their wages to their superior officer. We may say, then, that Akbar had sanctioned the following rates of wages, and that his servants could not earn more, but probably in practice got something less.
| Class | Sanctioned Rate | Modern Equivalent |
|---|---|---|
| Ordinary labourers | 2 dams daily | 5½ annas |
| Superior labourers | 3 to 4 dams daily | 8½ to 11 annas |
| Carpenters | 3 to 7 dams daily | 8½ annas to Re. 1.4 |
| Builders | 5 to 7 dams daily | 14 annas to Re. 1.4 |
These rates, it will be understood, applied primarily to expenditure in the Imperial Camp, which by itself formed the largest city in the Empire ; their purchasing power may therefore be calculated on the basis of the prices recorded by Abul Fazl, and I have shown the modern equivalents on this basis. So calculated, the rates are, broadly speaking, intermediate between those which prevailed in Agra and in Lahore when the Wage Census was taken in the year 1911,1 and indicate that, if Akbar’s workmen received the full sanctioned rates, they were rather better off than the modern workmen of the United Provinces, but not so well off as those of the Punjab : it is more probable that they got something less than the sanctioned rates and that their actual position was a little worse ; but the general conclusion to which these figures point is that urban real wages in the north of India stood at somewhere about the same level in Akbar’s time as in 1911, and that there has been no pronounced change in the standard of remuneration of these classes of the population. This conclusion is borne out by the monthly rates sanctioned for the infantry and for various departments of the Household : in several instances the lowest grades of servants were entitled to less than two rupees monthly (65 dams for a sweeper, 60 for a camel-driver, 70 for a wrestler, and so on), while the bulk of the menials and of the ordinary foot-soldiers began at less than three rupees. The minimum for subsistence at the Court is probably marked by the lowest grade of slaves, who were allowed one dam daily, equivalent to three-quarters of a rupee monthly in the currency of the time.
I have found no corresponding figures for the remuneration of men employed in more highly specialised work, and since we must assume that the separation between different grades of labour was at least as marked under Akbar as at the present day, it is not permissible to extend to their case the conclusion drawn from the rates for general labour. We have seen that artisans were, as a rule, badly off, and they can scarcely have been able to pay high wages to their journeymen, but what they actually paid is purely a matter of conjecture until fresh sources of information come to light.
The facts available regarding the wages paid by travellers and merchants come almost entirely from the south and west of India. Terry insists on the excellence of the servants obtained for five shillings, or say two rupees a month, and he adds that they would send half this sum home; probably this statement relates to servants hired in Surat, but in any case it refers to this part of the country, as Terry went no farther north than Mandu. Della Valle, writing of Surat about ten years later, put the rate at not more than three rupees, while de Laet’s informants gave from three to four rupees, which could be supplemented in some cases by com- mission charged on purchases. A messenger between Surat and Masulipatam was in 1614 allowed seven or eight mahmudis (say something between three and four rupees) for the journey : he took nearly two months over it, but he wasted time on the way, and probably one month would have been sufficient. These instances appear to justify the conclusion that early in the seventeenth century foreigners could secure capable servants for somewhere about three rupees a month. What this represents in real wages is uncertain: as has been indi- cated in a previous chapter, prices seem to have been higher on the west coast than in Northern India, but their precise level cannot be determined, while it would not perhaps be fair to compare this rate directly with the wages (approxi- mately 30 rupees monthly with a reasonable prospect of commission on purchases) which Terry or della Valle would have paid if they had arrived in Bombay in the year 1914. The rates struck Europeans as extraordinarily low, and taken with those which prevailed in the northern capital they enable us to understand the great development of domestic em- ployment which, as has been shown in a previous chapter, characterised the life of India at this period.
AUTHORITIES FOR CHAPTER V
SECTION 1.—Nil.
SECTION 2.—Travellers tell us little of the forests through which they passed; they were unpleasant features of a journey, to be hurried through as quickly as possible. Several of them, however, refer to the bamboos of Bengal and the teak of the Western Ghats; see, e.g., Pyrard, translation, i. 338, ii. 180. The authorities in regard to fisheries are Ain, translation, ii. 124, 126, 338; Linschoten, v. 48; Thévenot, 77. For the pearl-fishery, see, e.g., Hay, 735.
SECTION 3.—As regards gold, the silence of Tavernier seems to me con- clusive. He was specially interested in the topic and devotes some space (p. 393) to a review of Asiatic production: he had travelled widely in Southern India, and if there had been any goldfield there, we may be sure that he would have visited the mines. The metal is referred to in Ain, translation, ii. 171, 280, 312; some of these passages refer also to silver, the mine in Agra being mentioned on p. 181.
For lead and zinc, see Ain, translation, ii. 268; for copper, 173, 182, 194, 268, 280; for iron, 124, 159, 181, 230, 280, etc. An idea of the location of old workings can be obtained by referring to the entries under Copper and Iron in the index of the Imperial Gazetteer. For imports of copper, see Barbosa, 285; Xth Decada, i. 364; XIIth Decada, 20; Thévenot, 318. For prices of copper and other minerals, see Journal R.A.S., October 1918, 375 ff. Information regarding Indian steel is collected in Hobson-Jobson (art. Wootz.).
The account of the diamond-fields is in Tavernier, 326 ff. As to salt, the Punjab mines are described in Ain, translation, ii. 315; Badaoni refers to the Sambhar Lake (ii. 45) ; sea-salt is indicated in Ain, transla- tion, ii. 139, etc. (Bengal) ; 256, etc. (Gujarat) ; 338 (Sind) ; while Pyrard (translation, i. 359) mentions salt-pans in Malabar. Pyrard (ii. 257) also mentions the use of Bassein stone at Goa. For saltpetre, see Ain, transla- tion, ii. 231, 253.
SECTION 4.—Gur or jaggery is mentioned by various writers, e.g. Barbosa, 346, and Linschoten, c. 11. For the sugar of Bengal, see Barbosa, 362 ; Linschoten, c. 16 ; or Fitch in Purchas, II. x. 1736. For Ahmadabad and Cambhay, see Letters Received, i. 302. For candy, see Ain, translation, ii. 181 ; Letters Received, iv. 291 ; Linschoten, c. 7. Prices are given in Ain, transla- tion, i. 63.
For cotton-ginning, see Thévenot, 21 ; for indigo manufacture, Purchas, I. iv. 430. The availability of tobacco-leaf in Gujarat is recorded in Letters Received, i. 298 ; Terry, 96, notes the ignorance of the art of manufacture. Practically all authorities refer to intoxicating liquor of some sort. Akbar’s regulations are in Ain, translation, ii. 42 ; Jahangir’s orders are in Tuzuk, i. 8, and an account of his own habits will be found in Purchas, I. iii. 222. For examples of statements regarding the supply, see Barbosa, 346 ; Purchas, I. iv. 424 ; or Jourdain, 124, 132.
SECTION 5.—Mention of the artistic handicrafts is made by most visitors to the country ; see for examples Barbosa, 278 ; Linschoten, c. 9 ; or Thévenot, 36, 140. As to the scarcity of furniture, see especially Terry, 185, but the evidence is largely negative, and the position can best be realised by noting what is missing from the various contemporary descriptions. For Portu- guese furniture, see Pyrard, translation, ii. 245 ; for that of the merchants at Rander, see Barbosa, 287. The nature of Indian harness and saddlery is given in detail in Ain, translation, i. 126-153.
The statements in the text regarding paper are based mainly on della Valle, 291, and Pyrard, translation, ii. 175, 211, 245. References to the nature of houses will be found under the chapter dealing with the standard of life. For the time taken in building the Allahabad fort, see Purchas, I. iv. 437.
SECTION 6.—The best account of road travel is that given by Tavernier, 24 ff., also 121 ; it is rather later than our period, but I doubt if any marked change had occurred in the interval. For the extent of the river traffic, see Purchas, I. iv. 432, II. x. 1733 ; Elliot, History, v. 374 ; Ain, translation, i. 280. The size of the Ganges barges is given hy Jourdain, 162 ; and of those on the Jumna by Finch, in Purchas, I. iv. 439. For attempts to build ships in Arabia and Egypt, see Barbosa, 246 ; Xth Decada, ii. 178 ; and Hobson- Jobson under “Teak.” The authority for Pegu is Balbi, in Purchas, II. x. 1728. Conti’s mention of the pilgrim ships is in Major, 27 ; they are frequently referred to in Purchas (see, e.g., I. iii. 308, 396) ; even such a landsman as Terry mentions their size in tuns (idem, II. ix. 1470). Pyrard, among other writers, mentions the building of carracks at Bassein (ii. 114).
SECTION 7.—For export of silk goods, see Barbosa, 233, 366 ; Varthema, 111. Other authorities are silent, and it is noteworthy that neither Caesar Frederic, Fitch, nor Balbi (whose narratives are placed together in Purchas, II. x.) gives any hint of silk goods being exported from Bengal to Pegu. For the use of silk goods in India, see Ain, translation, i. 88, and Barbosa, 297. Tavernier’s account of production is p. 290 ; imports of raw material are referred to in Garcia da Orta, 95 ; Linschoten, c. 23 ; and Pyrard, transla- tion, ii. 239. I take the modern production from Professor Maxwell-Lefroy in Journal Royal Society of Arts, 1917, pp. 290 ff. The Gujarat industry is mentioned by most visitors ; see, e.g., Linschoten, c. 10. For Kashmir, see Ain, translation, ii. 349 ; for Akbar’s improvements, idem, i. 88 ; for “herb-silk,” see Hobson-Jobson under “Grass-Cloth” and “Moonga,” and the references there given.
The references to woollen goods are Ain, translation, i. 55, 90-96, 136. The disappointments of English merchants are mentioned frequently in Letters Received (e.g. ii. 96, 103). Terry’s remark on the quality of the wool is in Purchas, II. ix. 1469. Carpets are referred to in various places in the early volumes of English Factories.
SECTION 8.—The assessment rates on hemp will be found in Ain, transla- tion, ii. 91 ff. : the single reference to jute is ii. 123. The statement as to the use of jute clothing is quoted from the Imperial Gazetteer, iii. 204.
For the attitude of Europeans to the cotton-trade, see Pyrard, translation, ii. 245 ; Pyrard’s observation as to the nakedness of Africa is ii. 149 ; for Friar Joanno, see Purchas, II. ix. 1450 and passim. Remarks as to the scantiness of clothing in the Islands will be found in Hakluyt, v. 26, 372, and Purchas, I. iii. 165. Pyrard, translation, ii. 173, describes the course of trade with China at this period ; the quotation as to Japan is from Letters Received, iii. 238 ; Linschoten (c. 22) mentions the trade beyond the Philippines.
Notices of cotton goods in India are scattered through the " Account of the XII. Subas," in Ain, translation, ii., and will be found in the narrative of practically every European visitor. The Indus Valley industry is referred to by Manrique, lxii-lxx. The distribution of Cambay, Coromandel, and Bengal goods can best be traced in Barbosa, passim.
SECTION 9.—To appreciate the position of the artisans in towns it is desirable to study the early volumes of Letters Received as a whole. Par- ticular passages bearing on the subject will be found in i. 30, 302 ; ii. 112 ; iii. 84 ; iv. 249 ; also English Letters, 1618-21, 161. For State workshops, see Ain, translation, i. 88, and Bernier, 259 ; for the poverty of artisans, see Bernier, 228, and Thévenot, 140 ; for the effect of famine, see English Factories, 1630-33, 97, 146, 158, etc. The passages referred to in connection with taxation are Ain, translation, ii. 66, Terry, 397, and Tavernier, 81.
SECTION 10.—Bernier, 205, speaks of the movement to the towns ; for the labour market, see Terry, 173 ; his praise of Indian servants is on the same page. For the other rates quoted for the south and west, see della Valle, 42 ; de Laet, 117 ; and Letters Received, ii. 101, iv. 28.
The wage census referred to in the text is that of the year 1911, the figures for which were given in Prices and Wages in India, 32nd issue, 233 ff.
Notes
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$^1$ In the official statistics, petroleum takes the third place in the list of Indian minerals, ranking next to coal and gold, but practically the whole quantity is produced in Burma, and in this book we are dealing with India excluding Burma, and consequently leave Burmese production out of account.
the attendants (some of whom drew less than three rupees a month) had to pay the price of the animal (idem, p. 132), a regulation which may be held to justify the epithet ferocious used in the text.
1 The taste of the Moguls for fruit appears in almost every contemporary authority. Babur (Memoirs, 503-513) writes as a connoisseur ; the sources from which Akbar’s Court was supplied are detailed in the Ain (translation, i. 64-72) ; Jahangir’s views are expressed in the Tuzuk (i. 5, and passim). The Portuguese brought wine and spirits from Europe (Pyrard, translation, ii. 211), while there was also a considerable import from Burma (Linschoten, c. 17), and coffee came from Arabia (Jourdain, 86). Imported spices were used very largely in the kitchens of the Moguls, and also, probably, of other classes ; cloves and cinnamon appear in almost all the recipes given in the Ain (translation, i. 59, 60). ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎
2 The question of availability appears, if we may judge by old workings, to have depended largely on depth. When mines are carried down into the ground they soon become flooded, and in the modern industry arrange- ments are provided for pumping out the water; but pumping was not under- stood in India at this period, and the workings were abandoned when they reached the level at which water accumulated. ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎