Importance of Hand Labour
Introduction of machines required large capital investment. Hence, cheap labour was preferred over the use of machines.
Manual labour was also preferred in the industries where production fluctuated with seasons.
Goods with intricate designs and specific shapes were in great demand in the European markets. This was possible only with hand labour and not machine outputs.
The aristocrats and the bourgeoisie in Victorian Britain preferred the refined and carefully handmade products; machine made goods were for the colonies.
Life of the Workers
Large scale migrations to towns and cities from countryside in search of jobs.
Many job-seekers had to wait weeks, spending nights under bridges or in night shelters.
Workers became jobless after the busy season of work got over.
Some returned to the countryside when the demand for labour in the rural areas opened up.
Most people looked for odd-jobs, which till the mid-19th century were difficult to find.
The fear of unemployment made workers hostile to the introduction of new technology. Women who survived on hand-spinning began protesting when the Spinning Jenny was introduced.
The Age of Indian Textiles
Before the age of machines, silk and cotton goods from India dominated the international textile market.
Armenian and Persian merchants took goods from Punjab to Afghanistan, Eastern Persia and Central Asia.
Surat on Gujarat coast connected India to the Gulf and the Red Sea ports.
Masulipatam on the Coromandel Coast and Hooghly in Bengal had trade links with Southeast Asian ports.
A variety of Indian merchants and traders were involved in this network of export trade, financing production, carrying goods and supplying exporters. They gave advances to the weavers, procured the woven cloth from weaving villages and carried the supply to the ports.
The European companies gradually gained power and monopoly rights.
Trade through the new ports of Calcutta and Mumbai came to be controlled by the European companies.
Plight of Weavers
The East India Company gained monopoly rights over the Indian textile trade. It tried to eliminate the existing traders and brokers connected with the cloth trade and established direct control over the weavers.
A paid servant called the gomastha was appointed for supervising weavers, collecting supply and examining the quality of cloth.
The Company prevented the weavers from dealing with other buyers.
Once the order was placed, the weavers were given loans for purchasing raw material for production. The produced cloth was to be handed over to the gomastha.
The new gomasthas had no social link with the village. They acted arrogantly, marched into villages with sepoys and peons and punished weavers for delays in supply.
The price received by weavers from the Company was miserably low and the loans that they had accepted tied them to the Company.
In Carnatic and Bengal weavers deserted villages and migrated, setting up looms in other villages where they had some family relation. Elsewhere, the weavers along with the village traders revolted, opposing the Company and its officials.
Weavers began refusing loans, closing down their workshops and taking to agricultural labour.
British Textiles in India
The British industrialists pressurized the government to impose duties on cotton textiles so that Manchester goods could sell in Britain without any outside competition.
The industrialists also persuaded the East India Company for selling the British manufactures in the Indian markets.
Exports of British cotton goods increased dramatically in the early 19th century.
The export market of the Indian cotton weavers collapsed and the local market shrank, being glutted with cheap Manchester imports.
The weavers could not get sufficient supply of good quality raw cotton. Weavers in India were starved of supplies and forced to buy raw cotton at exorbitant prices.
By the end of the 19th century, factories in India began production, flooding the markets with machine-made goods. Consequently, the weaving industry decayed and died.
Factories in India
1854: First cotton mill came up in Bombay
1855: The first jute mill came up; and another one in 1862
1860s: The Elgin mill was started in Kanpur
1861: The first cotton mill of Ahmadabad was set up
1874: The first spinning and weaving mill of Madras began production.
also go through Age of Industrialisation (part 1)
