foreign country was at Bombay in 1813, when Gordon Hall and Samuel
Newall, fresh from Williams College, went to convert the heathen
Hindus. The governor general and the officials of the East India
Company ordered them away, for fear that they would stir up trouble
among the natives and suffer martyrdom, but they would not go, and
were finally allowed to remain under protest. A Baptist society
in England had sent out three men--Messrs. Carey, Ward and
Marshman--a few years before. They went to Calcutta, but the
East India Company would not permit them to preach or teach,
so they removed to Gerampore, where they undertook evangelical
work under the protection of the Dutch. But nowadays the British
government cannot do enough to help the missionaries, particularly
the Americans, who are treated in the same generous manner as
those of the Established Church of England, and are given grants
of money, land and every assistance that they officially could
receive.
Speaking of the services of the missionaries during the recent
famine, Lord Curzon said: "I have seen cases where the entire
organization of a vast area and the lives of thousands of beings
rested upon the shoulders of a single individual, laboring on
in silence and in solitude, while his bodily strength was fast
ebbing away. I have known of natives who, inspired by his example,
have thrown themselves with equal ardor into the struggle, and
have unmurmuringly laid down their lives for their countrymen.
Particularly must I mention the noble efforts of missionary agencies
of various Christian denominations. If there ever was an occasion
in which it was open to them to vindicate the highest standards
of their beneficent calling it was here, and strenuously and
faithfully have they performed the task."
In 1901 the government of India recognized the labors and devotion
of the American missionaries during the previous famine by bestowing
upon Dr. Hume the Kaiser-I-Hind gold medal, which is never bestowed
except for distinguished public services, and is not conferred
every year. It is considered the highest honor that can be bestowed
upon a civilian.
Sir Muncherjee Bharnajgree, a Parsee member of parliament, recently
asserted that the American missionaries were doing more for the
industrial development of the Indian Empire than the government
itself. The government recognizes the importance of their work
and has given liberal grants to the industrial schools of the
American Board of Foreign Missions, which are considered the
most successful and perhaps the most useful in India. It is
significant to find that the most important of these schools
was founded by Sir D. M. Petit, a wealthy Parsee merchant and
manufacturer, at the city of Ahmednagar, where 400 bright boys
are being trained for mechanics and artisans under the direction
of James Smith, formerly of Toronto and Chicago. D. C. Churchill,
formerly of Oberlin, Ohio, and a graduate of the Boston School
of Technology, a mechanical engineer of remarkable genius, has
another school in which hand weaving of fine fabrics is taught
to forty or fifty boys who show remarkable skill. Mr. Churchill,
who came out in 1901, soon detected the weakness of the native
method of weaving, and has recently invented a hand loom which
can turn out thirty yards of cloth a day, and will double, and
in many cases treble, the productive capacity of the average
worker. And he expects soon to erect a large building in which
he can set up the new looms and accommodate a much larger number
of pupils. J. B. Knight, a scientific agriculturist who also came
out in 1901, has a class of forty boys, mostly orphans whose
fathers and mothers died during the late famine. They are being
trained in agricultural chemistry and kindred subjects in order to
instruct the native farmers throughout that part of the country.
Rev. R. Windsor, of Oberlin, is running another school founded by
Sir D. M. Petit at Sirur, 125 miles east of Bombay, where forty
boys are being educated as machinists and mechanics. At Ahmednagar,
Mrs. Wagentreiver has a school of 125 women and girls, mostly
widows and orphans of the late famine, who are being taught the
art of lacemaking, and most of her graduates are qualified to
serve as instructors in other lace schools which are constantly
being established in other parts of India. There is also a school
for potters, and the Americans are sending to the School of Art
at Bombay sixty boys to be designers, draughtsmen, illustrators
and qualified in other of the industrial arts.
It is interesting to discover that the School of Industrial Arts
founded by Sir D. M. Petit at Ahmednagar owes its origin to the
Chicago Manual Training School, whose aims and methods were carefully
studied and applied to Indian conditions with equally satisfactory
results. The principal and founder of the school, James Smith, was
sent out and is supported by the New England Congregational Church
on the North Side, Chicago, and generous financial assistance
has been received from Mr. Victor F. Lawson and other members of
that church. It was started in 1891 with classes in woodwork and
mechanical drawing, and has prospered until it has now outgrown
in numbers and importance the high school with which it was
originally connected.
This school is the most conspicuous example of combined English
education and industry in western India, and has received the
highest praise from government officers. Its grant from the
government, too, is higher than that of any other school in the
province. The government paid half of the cost of all the buildings
and equipments, while a very large part of the other half was
paid by people of this country, foremost among the donors being
the late Sir D. M. Petit, Bart., who built and equipped the first
building entirely at his own expense.
Mr. Churchill's workshops have also been very highly commended by
the government inspectors, and his invention has attracted wide
notice because it has placed within reach of the local weavers
an apparatus which is an immense saving in labor and will secure
its operators at least three times the results and compensations
for the same expenditure of time and toil. It thus affords them
means of earning a more comfortable living, and at the same time
gives the people a supply of cheap cotton cloth which they require,
and utilizes defective yarn which the steam power mills cannot
use. The government inspectors publicly commend Mr. Churchill
for declining to patent his invention and for leaving it free
to be used by everybody without royalty of any kind.
It is exceedingly gratifying to hear from all sides these and
other similar encomiums of the American missionaries, and it
makes a Yankee proud to see the respect that is felt for and paid
to them. Lord Curzon, the governors of the various provinces and
other officials are hearty in their commendation of American men
and women and American methods, and especially for the services
our missionaries rendered during the recent famines and plagues.
They testify that in all popular discontent and uprisings they
have exerted a powerful influence for peace and order and for
the support of the government. Lord Northcote, recently governor
of Bombay, in a letter to President Roosevelt, said:
"In Ahmednagar I have seen for myself what practical results
have been accomplished, and during the famine we owed much to the
practical schemes of benevolence of the American missionaries."
On the first of January, 1904, the viceroy of India bestowed upon
William I. Chamberlin of the American Mission College at Madras the
Kaiser-I-Hind gold medal for his services to the public. A similar
medal was conferred upon Dr. Louis Klopsch of the Christian Herald,
New York, who collected and forwarded $600,000 for direct famine
relief and provided for the support of 5,000 famine orphans for
five years. Other large sums were sent from the United States.
The money was not given away. The American committee worked in
cooperation with the agents of the government and other relief
organizations, so as to avoid duplication. They provided clothing
for the naked and work at reasonable wages for the starving. They
bought seed for farmers and assisted them to hire help to put
it in the ground. The rule of the committee in the disbursement
of this money was not to pauperize the people, but to help those
who helped themselves, and to require a return in some form for
every penny that was given. Dr. Hume says: "The gift was charity,
but the system was business." The American relief money directly
and indirectly reached several millions of people and has provided
for the maintenance and education of more than five thousand
orphans, boys and girls, who were left homeless and helpless
when their fathers and mothers died of starvation. More than
320 widows, entirely homeless, friendless and dependent, were
placed in comfortable quarters, taught how to work, and are now
self-supporting. Two homes for widows are maintained by the
missionaries of the American Board, one in Bombay in charge of
Miss Abbott and her sister, Mrs. Dean, with nearly 200 inmates,
and the other at Ahmednagar, in charge of Mrs. Hume.
The medical and dispensary work of the American missions is also
very extensive, and its importance to the peasant class and the
blessings it confers upon the poor cannot be realized by those
people who have never visited India and other countries of the
East and seen the condition of women. As I told you in a previous
chapter, ninety per cent of the Hindu population of India will not
admit men physicians to their homes to see women patients, and the
only relief that the wives, mothers and daughters and sisters in
the zenanas can obtain when they are ill is from the old-fashioned
herb doctors and charm mixers of the bazaars. Now American women
physicians are scattered all over India healing the wounded and
curing the sick. There are few from other countries, although
the English, Scotch and German Lutherans have many missions.
XXIX
COTTON, TEA, AND OPIUM
Next to the United States, India is the largest cotton-producing
country in the world, and, with the exception of Galveston and
New Orleans, Bombay claims to be the largest cotton market. The
shipments have never reached $50,000,000 a year, but have gone
very near that point. Every large state in southern India produces
cotton, but Bombay and Berar are the principal producers. The
area for the whole of India in 1902-3 was 14,232,000 acres, but
this has been often exceeded. In 1893-4 the area planted was
nearly 15,500,000. The average is about 14,000,000 acres. Cotton
is usually grown in conjunction with some other crop, and in
certain portions of India two crops a year are produced on the
same soil. The following table will show the number of bales
produced during the years named:
Bales of Bales of
400 lbs. 400 lbs.
1892-3 1,924,000 1897-8 2,198,000
1893-4 2,180,000 1898-9 2,425,000
1894-5 1,957,000 1899-0 843,000
1895-6 2,364,000 1900-1 2,309,000
1896-7 1,929,000 1901-2 1,960,000
The failure of the crop in 1899-1900 was due to the drought which
caused the great famine.
About one-half of the crop is used in the local mills. The greater
part of the remainder is shipped to Japan, which is the best
customer. Germany comes next, and, curiously enough, Great Britain
is one of the smallest purchasers. Indian cotton is exclusively of
the short staple variety and not nearly so good as that produced
in Egypt. Repeated attempts have been made to introduce Egyptian
cotton, but, while some of the experiments have been temporarily
successful, it deteriorates the second year.
The cost of producing cotton is very much less than in the United
States, because the land always yields a second crop of something
else, which, under ordinary circumstances, ought to pay taxes
and often fixed charges, as well as the wages of labor, which
are amazingly low, leaving the entire proceeds of the cotton
crop to be counted as clear gain. The men and women who work in
the cotton fields of India are not paid more than two dollars
a month. That is considered very good wages. All the shipping is
done in the winter season; the cotton is brought in by railroad
and lies in bags on the docks until it is transferred to the
holds of ships. During the winter season the cotton docks are
the busiest places around Bombay.
The manufacture of cotton is increasing rapidly. There are now
eighty-four mills in Bombay alone, with a capital of more than
$25,000,000, and all of them have been established since 1870,
including some of the most modern, up-to-date plants in existence.
The people of Bombay have about $36,000,000 invested in mills,
most of it being owned by Parsees. There are mills scattered all
over the country. The industry dates from 1851, and during the
last twenty years the number of looms has increased 100 per cent
and spindles 172 per cent. January 1, 1891, there were 127 mills,
with 117,922 operatives, representing an investment of £7,844,000.
On the 31st of March, 1904, according to the official records,
there were 201 cotton mills in India, containing 43,676,000 looms
and 5,164,360 spindles, with a combined capital of £12,175,000.
This return, however, does not include thirteen mills which were
not heard from, and they will probably increase the number of
looms and spindles considerably and the total capital to more
than $60,000,000.
The wages paid operatives in the cotton mills of India are almost
incredibly low. I have before me an official statement from a
mill at Cawnpore, which is said to give a fair average for the
entire country. The mills of Bombay, Madras and Calcutta and
other large cities pay about one-half more. At smaller places
farther in the north the rates are much less. The wages are given
in rupees and decimals of a rupee, which in round numbers is
worth 33 cents in our money.
MONTHLY WAGES IN A COTTON MILL AT CAWNPORE FOR THE
YEARS NAMED (IN RUPEES AND DECIMALS OF A RUPEE).
1885. 1890. 1900. 1903.
Cardroom--
Head mistry 17.00 24.80 34.90 33.00
Card cleaner 5.00 5.25 8.70 8.84
Spare hands 5.00 5.25 5.90 6.58
Muleroom--
Head mistry 8.50 19.60 34.00 36.42
Minder 5.00 6.37 6.20 7.12
Spare hands 5.00 5.00 6.00 6.50
Weaving department--
Mistry 13.50 18.00 18.80 17.81
Healder 5.00 5.50 7.60 7.09
Weaver 6.00 10.50 8.62 9.14
Finishing department--
Washers and bleachers 6.00 18.00 18.70 21.25
Dyer 5.00 5.50 5.50 6.08
Finishing man 5.00 5.50 6.00 6.53
Engineering shop--
Boiler mistry 6.00 9.00 9.30 10.16
Engine man 8.00 11.00 10.80 14.62
Oil man 6.00 6.00 6.20 6.64
Boiler man 6.00 6.00 6.90 7.31
Carpenter 10.00 10.00 11.10 11.67
Blacksmith 11.50 13.50 13.80 15.84
Fitter 10.00 11.00 13.98
These wages, however, correspond with those received by persons in
other lines of employment. The postmen employed by the government,
or letter carriers as we call them, receive a maximum of only
12.41 rupees a month, which is about $3.50, and a minimum of
9.25, which is equivalent to $3.08 in our money. Able-bodied
and skilled mechanics--masons, carpenters and blacksmiths--get
no more than $2.50 to $3.50 a month, and bookkeepers, clerks
and others having indoor occupations, from $4.10 to $5.50 per
month. Taking all of the wage-earners together in India, their
compensation per month is just about as much as the same class
receive per day in the United States.
The encouragement of manufacturing is one of the methods the
government has adopted to prevent or mitigate famines, and its
policy is gradually becoming felt by the increase of mechanical
industries and the employment of the coolie class in lines other
than agriculture. At the same time, the problem is complicated
by the fact that the greater part of the mechanical products of
India have always been produced in the households. Each village
has its own weavers, carpenters, brass workers, blacksmiths and
potters, who are not able to compete with machine-made goods.
Many of these local craftsmen have attained a high standard of
artistic skill in making up silk, wool, linen, cotton, carpets,
brass, iron, silver, wood, ivory and other materials. But their
arts must necessarily decay or depreciate if the local markets are
flooded with cheap products from factories, and there a question
of serious consequence has arisen.
There is very active rivalry in the tea trade of late years.
China formerly supplied the world. Thirty years ago very little
was exported from any other country. Then Japan came in as an
energetic competitor and sent its tea around everywhere, but
the consumption increased as rapidly as the cultivation, so that
China kept her share of the trade. About fifteen years ago India
came into the market; and then Ceylon. The Ceylon export trade
has been managed very skillfully. There has been an enormous
increase in the acreage planted, and 92 per cent of the product
has been sent to the United Kingdom, where it has gradually
supplanted that of China and Japan. Australia has also become
a large consumer of India tea, and the loyalty with which the
two great colonies of Great Britain have stood together is
commendable. In England alone the consumption of India tea has
increased nearly 70 per cent within the last ten years. This is
the result of careful and intelligent effort on the part of the
government. While wild tea is found in Assam and in several of
the states adjoining the Himalayas, tea growing is practically
a new thing in India compared with China and Japan. It was not
until 1830, when Lord William Benthinck was viceroy, that any
considerable amount of tea was produced in India. He introduced
the plant from China and brought men from that country at the
expense of the East India Company to teach the Hindus how to
cultivate it. For many years the results were doubtful and the
efforts of the government were ridiculed. But for the great faith
of two or three patriotic officials the scheme would have been
abandoned. It was remarkably successful, however, until now the
area under tea includes more than half a million acres, the number
of persons employed in the industry exceeds 750,000, the capital
invested in plantations is more than $100,000,000 and the approximate
average yield is about 200,000,000 pounds. In 1903 159,000,000
pounds were exported to England alone, and the total exports
were 182,594,000 pounds. The remainder is consumed in India,
and more than a million pounds annually are purchased for the
use of the army. Among other consumers the United States bought
1,080,000 and China 1,337,000 pounds. Russia, which is the largest
consumer of tea of all the nations, bought 1,625,000 pounds,
and this was a considerable increase, showing that India tea is
becoming popular there.
The industry in India and Ceylon, however, is in a flourishing
condition, the area under cultivation has expanded 85 per cent
and the product has increased 167 per cent during the last fifteen
years. The cultivation is limited to sections where there is a
heavy rainfall and a humid climate, because tea requires water
while it is growing as well as while it is being consumed. Where
these conditions exist it is a profitable crop. In the valleys
of Assam the yield often reaches 450 pounds to the acre. The
quality of the tea depends upon the manner of cultivation, the
character of the soil, the amount of moisture and sunshine and
the age of the leaf at the time of picking. Young, tender leaves
have the finest flavor, and bring the highest prices, but shrink
enormously in curing, and many growers consider it more profitable
to leave them until they are well matured. It requires about
four pounds of fresh leaves to make one pound of dry leaves,
and black tea and green tea are grown from the same bush. If the
leaf is completely dried immediately after picking it retains
its green color, but if it is allowed to stand and sweat for
several hours a kind of fermentation takes place which turns it
black.
There are now about 236,000 acres of coffee orchards in India,
about 111,760 persons are employed upon them and the exports
will average 27,000,000 pounds a year. The coffee growers of
India complain that they cannot compete with Brazil and other
Spanish-American countries where overproduction has forced down
prices below the margin of profit, but the government is doing
as much as it can to encourage and sustain the industry, and
believes that they ought at least to grow enough to supply the
home market. But comparatively little coffee is used in India.
Nearly everybody drinks tea.
Three million acres of land is devoted to the cultivation of
sugar, both cane and beet. During the Cuban revolution the industry
secured quite an impetus, but since the restoration of peace and
the adjustment of affairs, prices have gone down considerably,
and the sugar of India finds itself in direct competition with
the bounty-paid product of Germany, France, Belgium, Austria
and other European countries. In order to protect its planters
the government has imposed countervailing duties against European
sugar, but there has been no perceptible effect from this policy
as yet.
The indigo trade has been very important, but is also in peril
because of the manufacture of chemical dyes in Germany and France.
Artificial indigo and other dyes can be produced in a laboratory
much cheaper than they can be grown in the fields, and, naturally,
people will buy the low-priced article, Twenty years ago India
had practically a monopoly of the indigo trade, and 2,000,000
acres of land were planted to that product, while the value of
the exports often reached $20,000,000. The area and the product
have been gradually decreasing, until, in 1902, only a little
more than 800,000 acres were planted and the exports were valued
at less than $7,000,000.
The quinine industry is also in a deplorable state. About thirty
years ago the Indian government sent botanists to South America
to collect young cinchona trees. They were introduced into various
parts of the empire, where they flourished abundantly until the
export of bark ran nearly to 4,000,000 pounds a year, but since
1899 there has been a steady fall. Exports have declined, prices
have been low, and the government plantations have not paid expenses.
Rather than export the bark at a loss the government has manufactured
sulphate at its own factories and has furnished it at cost price
to the health authorities of the native states, the British
provinces, the army and the hospitals and dispensaries.
One of the most interesting places about Calcutta is the Royal
Botanical Gardens, where many important experiments have been
made for the benefit of the agricultural industry of India. It is
one of the most beautiful and extensive arboreums in the world,
and at the same time its economic usefulness has been unsurpassed
by any similar institution. It was established nearly 150 years
ago by Colonel Kyd, an ardent botanist, under the auspices of
the East India Company, and from its foundation it was intended
to be, as it has been, a source of botanical information, a place
for botanical experiments, and a garden in which plants of economic
value could be cultivated and issued to the public for the purpose
of introducing new products into India. It has been of incalculable
value in all these particulars, not only by introducing new plants,
but by demonstrating which could be grown with profit.
[Illustration: GREAT BANYAN TREE--BOTANICAL GARDEN--CALCUTTA]
The garden lies along the bank of the Ganges, about six miles
south of the city, and is filled with trees and plants of the
rarest varieties and the greatest beauty you can imagine. No
other garden will equal it except perhaps that at Colombo. It
is 272 acres in extent, has a large number of ponds and lakes,
and many fine avenues of palms, mahogany, mangos, tamarinds,
plantains and other trees, and its greatest glory is a banyan
tree which is claimed to be the largest in the world.