In the words of the summary prefixed to the report:
"The first chapters of the report deal with India as an industrial
country, her present position, and her potentialities. They show how
little the march of modern industry has affected the great bulk of the
Indian population, which remains engrossed in agriculture, winning a
bare subsistence from the soil by antiquated methods of cultivation.
Such changes as have been wrought in rural areas are the effects of
economic rather than of industrial evolution. In certain centers the
progress of Western industrial methods is discernible; and a number of
these are described in order to present a picture of the conditions
under which industries are carried on, attention being drawn to the
shortage and to the general inefficiency of Indian labor and to the lack
of an indigenous supervising agency. Proposals are made for the better
exploitation of the forests and fisheries. In discussing the industrial
deficiencies of India, the report shows how unequal the industrial
development of our industries has been. Money has been invested in
commerce rather than industries, and only those industries have been
taken up which appeared to offer safe and easy profits. Previous to the
war, too ready reliance was placed on imports from overseas, and this
habit was fostered by the Government practice of purchasing stores in
England. India produces nearly all the raw materials necessary for the
requirements of a modern community; but is unable to manufacture many of
the articles and materials necessary alike in times of peace and war.
For instance, her great textile industries are dependent upon supplies
of imported machinery and would have to shut down if command of the seas
were lost. It is vital, therefore, for the Government to ensure the
establishment of those industries in India whose absence exposes us to
grave danger in event of war. The report advocates the introduction of
modern methods of agriculture and in particular of labor-saving devices.
Greater efficiency in cultivation, and in the preparation of produce for
the market would follow; labor now wastefully employed would be set free
for industries and the establishment of shops for the manufacture and
repair of machinery would lead to the growth of a huge engineering
industry."
The summarized statements will be made more clear by the following
extracts from Chapter I on rural India.
"Famine connotes not so much a scarcity or entire absence of food as
high prices and a lack of employment in the affected areas.... The
capital in the hands of the country traders has proved insufficient to
finance the ordinary movements of crops and the seasonal calls for
accommodations from the main financial centers are constantly
increasing. This lack of available capital is one cause of the high
rates that the ryot has to pay for the ready money which he needs to buy
seed and to meet the expenses of cultivation. On the other hand, money
is largely invested in the purchase of landed property, the price of
which has risen to very high figures in many parts of the country....
But the no less urgent necessity of relieving the ryot from the enormous
load of debt with which he has been burdened by the dearness of
agricultural capital, the necessity of meeting periodic demands for rent
and his social habits, has hitherto been met only to a very small extent
by co-operative organization. The farmer, owing partly to poverty and
partly to the extreme sub-division of the land, is very often a producer
on so small a scale that it is practically impossible for him to take
his crops to the larger markets where he can sell at current rates to
the agents of the bigger firms.... A better market system, co-operative
selling, and education are the promising remedies."
Coming to the industrial centers of the country apart from the rural
areas, the report says:
"A characteristic feature of organised industry and commerce in all the
chief Indian centers is the presence of large agency firms which, except
in the case of Bombay, are mainly European. In addition to participating
in the export and import trade, they finance and manage industrial
ventures all over the country, and often have several branches in the
large towns. The importance of these agency houses may be gauged by the
fact that they are in control of the majority of the cotton, jute and
other mills as well as of the tea gardens and the coal mines."
The general remarks about the industrial deficiency of the country will
be better understood from the following extracts:
"We have already referred to the dependence of India on outside sources
of sulphur and the necessity for insisting on the local smelting of her
sulphide ores. In the absence of any means for producing from purely
Indian sources sulphuric, nitric, and hydrochloric acids, and alkalis,
our manufactures, actual or prospective, of paper, drugs, matches, oils,
explosives, disinfectants, dyes and textiles are dependent upon imports
which under war conditions, might be cut off. Sources of raw materials
for heavy chemicals are deficient. The output of saltpeter could be
raised to 40,000 tons per annum and supplementary supplies of nitrates
could be produced, if necessary, from atmospheric nitrogen; but for this
again, cheap electric power is needed. Salt occurs in abundance and the
establishment of caustic soda manufacture, preferably by an electric
process, that would also yield chlorine, is a necessary part of our
chemical programme. There are available in the country, in fair
quantity, many other raw materials necessary for heavy chemical
manufacture, in addition to those referred to under other heads; among
them may be mentioned alum, salts, barytes, borax, gypsum, limestone,
magnesia, phosphates of lime and ochres. The installation of plants for
the recovery of by-products in coking has recently been undertaken, but
for the recovery of tar and ammonia only. The recovery of benzol and
related products has so far not been attempted nor has anything been
done to utilise the tar by re-distillation or other chemical treatment.
"Although India exported raw rubber valued in 1917-1918 at 162 lakhs,
rubber manufacture has not been started in the country and goods to the
value of 116 lakhs were imported in 1917-1918. This industry is one of
those that are essential in the national interest and should be
inaugurated, if necessary, by special measures.
"Though textile industries exist on a large scale, the range of goods
produced is still narrow, and we are dependent upon foreign sources for
nearly all of our miscellaneous textile requirements. In addition to
these, the ordinary demands of Indian consumers necessitate the import
of some Rs. 66 crores worth of cotton piece-goods, and interference with
this source of supply has caused serious hardship. Flax is not yet grown
in appreciable quantities and the indigenous species of so-called hemp,
though abundantly grown, are not at present used in any organized Indian
industry.
"Our ability to produce and to preserve many of our foodstuffs in
transportable forms or to provide receptacles for mineral or vegetable
oils depends upon the supply of tin plates which India at present
imports in the absence of local manufactures.
"Our few paper factories before the war stood on an uncertain basis and
we are still dependent upon foreign manufacture for most of the higher
qualities."
India produces enormous quantities of leather on a relatively small
scale by modern processes; and the village tanner supplies the local
needs only, and with a very inferior material. To obtain the quantities
and standards of finished leather which the country requires, it will be
necessary to stimulate industries by the institution of technical
training and by the experimental work on a considerable scale.
"Large quantities of vegetable products are exported for the manufacture
of drugs, dyes and essential oils, which in many cases are re-imported
into India.
"The blanks in our industrial catalog are of a kind most surprising to
one familiar only with the European conditions. We have already alluded
generally to the basic deficiencies in our iron and steel industries
and have explained how, as a result, the many engineering shops in India
are mainly devoted to the repair or to the manufacture of, hitherto
mainly from imported materials, comparatively simple structures, such as
roofs, bridges, wagons and tanks. India can build a small marine engine
and turn out a locomotive provided certain essential parts are obtained
from abroad but _she has not a machine to make nails or screws, nor can
she manufacture some of the essential parts of electrical machinery_.[1]
"Electrical plant and equipment are still, therefore, imported, in spite
of the fact that incandescent lamps are used by the millions and
electric fans by the tens of thousands. India relies on foreign supplies
of steel springs and iron chains and for wire ropes, a vital necessity
of her mining industry. We have already pointed out the absence of any
manufacture of textile mill accessories. The same may be said of the
equipment of nearly all industrial concerns. The list of deficiencies
includes all kinds of machine tools, steam engines, boilers and gas and
oil engines, hydraulic presses and heavy cranes. Simple lathes, small
sugar mills, small pumps, and a variety of odds and ends are made in
some shops, but the basis of their manufacture and the limited scale of
production do not enable them to compete with imported goods of similar
character to the extent of excluding the latter. Agriculturists' and
planters' tools such as ploughs, _mamooties_, spades, shovels and
pickaxes are mainly imported as well as the hand tools of improved
character used in most cottage industries, including wood-working tools,
healds and reeds, shuttles and pickers. Bicycles, motor cycles and motor
cars cannot at present be made in India though the imports under these
heads were valued at Rs. 187 lakhs in 1913-1914. The manufacture of
common glass is carried on in various localities, and some works have
turned out ordinary domestic utensils and bottles of fair quality, but
no attempt has been made to produce plate or sheet glass or indeed any
of the harder kinds of commercial glass, while optical glass manufacture
has never even been mooted. The extent of our dependence on imported
glass is evidenced by the fact that in 1913-1914 this was valued at Rs.
164 lakhs. Porcelain insulators, good enough for low tension currents,
are manufactured, but India does not produce the higher qualities of
either porcelain or china....
"The list of industries which, though their products are essential alike
in peace and war, are lacking in this country, _is lengthy and almost
ominous_.[2] Until they are brought into existence on an adequate scale,
Indian capitalists will, in times of peace, be deprived of a number of
profitable enterprises; whilst in the event of war which renders the sea
transport impossible, India's all-important existing industries will be
exposed to the risk of stoppage, her consumers to great hardship, and
her armed forces to the gravest danger."
In discussing the part played by Indians of all classes in the
industrial development of the Country the Commission observes:
"It is obvious that the great obstacles are the lack of even vernacular
education and the low standard of comfort. The higher grade of worker,
the mechanical artisan, in the absence of adequate education has been
prevented from attaining a greater degree of skill. He finds himself
where he is, less by deliberate choice than by the accident of his
obtaining work at some railway or other engineering shop, or by the
possession of a somewhat more enterprising spirit than his fellows.
There is at present only very inadequate provision for any form of
technical training to supplement the experience that he can gain by
actual work in an engineering shop, while the generally admitted need
for a more trustworthy and skillful type of man is at present met by
importing charge-men and foremen from abroad."