'Russia and India in 1903' [‎27r] (55/68)

BRITISH TRADE IN INDIA. 49
of exercising all his experience and even of his love
for the beautiful art of India, which, as evidenced
in his Delhi Exhibition speech, has to give place to
the practical and comfortable consignments of Sheffield,
London, Birmingham and other sunless spots to the
land of the sun.
Indian Competition with England.
I would further urge the course I have indicated
upon this ground, that it is impossible not to fore
see a very early change in the commercial relations
between Great Britain and India, and notably in
a considerable replacement of British manufactured
textiles, forming the major portion of the Imperial
trade from Great Britain—£2 2,000,000 in 1900 out of
£37>5 00 > 0 0 °—by the production of Indian mills. The
return of wages from Cawnpore and other manufac
turing centres show that with a wage to artificers
per mensem, only about half that of the Lancashire
factory An East India Company trading post. hand per week, with longer hours of labour,
with no restrictions of output by the action of trades
union and strikes, with great sobriety and capacity for
rapid learning, with coal-fields in India already pro
ducing seven million tons a year and fresh deposits in
Bikanir, and elsewhere, being brought into working,
this competition must increase every year, and to
British detriment. The working men in Lancashire
and the woollen and worsted districts of Yorkshire
do not understand this yet as it is understood here.
They have not seen, as I did this morning at Parel,
fifty cotton mill chimpey-stacks in full smoke. My
own constituents are closely concerned also. In
the financial statement of 1902 this ominous phrase
was used by the Viceroy : “ Sir Edward Law and I
are very anxious to see a large development of steel
and iron-making industries in this country. India
R.I. D