This was the
conclusion of the majority report of the committee of the Manchester
Chamber of Commerce, which made an inquiry into Bombay and Lancashire
spinning in 1888. Besides, as regards Indian exports to China, the
remission in 1875 of the 3% export duty on yarns must be borne in
mind. The efficiency of labour in India is only a small fraction of
that of Lancashire operatives. Recently complaint has been made that
Indian mills are being run inhumanely long hours with the same set of
labour, and that child-labour is being abused, both legally and
illegally--legally as regards children over fourteen who are classed
as adults. The working of heavy hours began with the electric lighting
of the mills; previously all shut down at sunset largely because of
the cost of illumination. The outcry which has been raised is,
perhaps, sufficient guarantee that the worst evils will be remedied.
Indian spinning, it must be remembered, is still very coarse as a
rule, though some fine work is attempted and the average of counts
spun is rising. Though there are about a ninth as many spindles in
India as in the United Kingdom, there are only about one-fifteenth as
many power-looms, 46,400 in all, to which figure they rose between
1891 and 1904 from 24,700. The reason for the paucity of power-looms
is probably two-fold, (1) the low cost of production of Lancashire
weavers, and (2) the habit of hand-loom weaving which is fixed in the
Indian people. A rapid increase of power-looms is, however,
observable. The hand-loom industry is gigantic, particularly in the
Madras Presidency and the Central Provinces; in the latter district
alone there were estimated to be 150,000 hand-looms in 1883. The
following details relating to the Indian cotton industry are supplied
officially:--

_Cotton Mills in India, including Mills in Native States and French
India_.

+-----------------------------------+------------+------------+
| Mills. | 1897-1898. | 1903-1904. |
+-----------------------------------+------------+------------+
|Mills (number) | 164 | 204 |
|Capital (thousand Ls) | 648 | 1,067 |
|Looms (number) | 36,946 | 46,421 |
|Spindles (thousands) | 4,219 | 5,213 |
|Persons employed (daily average) | 148,753 | 186