DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.636#0480
470 Caste in relation to Trades and Industries.
of twenty boxes was not more than fourpence or sixpence,
although twenty-three different manipulations were needed
to complete each box.
Again, I went into a brass-worker's shop in the braziers'
quarter at Benares, where men were engaged in manu-
facturing drinking cups, salvers, vases, and other vessels.
These workmen were seen chiselling out exquisite intricate
and beautiful patterns with no other implements than a
hammer and a nail. A purchaser of any such articles re-
quests to have them weighed before buying them, and only
pays a shilling or two beyond the actual value of the brass.
Frequently, indeed, it strikes a European as strange, that if
he desires to purchase any of the beautiful articles he sees
before him in native workshops, scarcely a single thing is
to be had ; they have all been made to order. There is little
stock kept, and whatever a customer wants must be made
specially to order, and not without an advance in money.
There is little capital to be found in India; and this perhaps
will account for the undoubted fact, that Indian industries are
left behind in the race of competition by those of Europe.
During the American war, vast quantities of Indian cotton—
to the annual value of twenty-two million pounds sterling
—found its way to England, to be returned in the form of
printed calico to India. The Manchester cotton cloth was
far inferior to that spun and woven, and decorated with orna-
mental patterns, by men's hands in India, but it was much
cheaper, because even the most active hand workers, working
with imperfect implements and tools, according to antiquated
methods for the lowest possible wages, cannot compete with
machine-made goods, or make head against the combination
of European science, capital, and enterprise. It is on this
account that cotton mills have recently been established at
Bombay, and in some other parts of India. No less than
fifty-three spinning and weaving mills had been erected when
I was in India, while others were in process of erection. Is it
of twenty boxes was not more than fourpence or sixpence,
although twenty-three different manipulations were needed
to complete each box.
Again, I went into a brass-worker's shop in the braziers'
quarter at Benares, where men were engaged in manu-
facturing drinking cups, salvers, vases, and other vessels.
These workmen were seen chiselling out exquisite intricate
and beautiful patterns with no other implements than a
hammer and a nail. A purchaser of any such articles re-
quests to have them weighed before buying them, and only
pays a shilling or two beyond the actual value of the brass.
Frequently, indeed, it strikes a European as strange, that if
he desires to purchase any of the beautiful articles he sees
before him in native workshops, scarcely a single thing is
to be had ; they have all been made to order. There is little
stock kept, and whatever a customer wants must be made
specially to order, and not without an advance in money.
There is little capital to be found in India; and this perhaps
will account for the undoubted fact, that Indian industries are
left behind in the race of competition by those of Europe.
During the American war, vast quantities of Indian cotton—
to the annual value of twenty-two million pounds sterling
—found its way to England, to be returned in the form of
printed calico to India. The Manchester cotton cloth was
far inferior to that spun and woven, and decorated with orna-
mental patterns, by men's hands in India, but it was much
cheaper, because even the most active hand workers, working
with imperfect implements and tools, according to antiquated
methods for the lowest possible wages, cannot compete with
machine-made goods, or make head against the combination
of European science, capital, and enterprise. It is on this
account that cotton mills have recently been established at
Bombay, and in some other parts of India. No less than
fifty-three spinning and weaving mills had been erected when
I was in India, while others were in process of erection. Is it