COTTON MILLS IN INDIA.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XXXX, Issue 13102, 16 June 1913, Page 7

COTTON MILLS IN INDIA.

In the London Magazine Saint Nihal Singh, an Indian writer, shows how India is fighting Manchester for supre- ; macy m the cotton trade. India, im- j ports some £23,000,000 of cotton cloth; m a year, and is determined to make I it m its own mills from its own cotton. "As year by year the smoke curling! from the chimneys of Indian cotton mills ! increases m volume, it writes the doom of Lancashire against the industrial firmament m characters so black an<l bold that he who runs may read the decree of the Fates," says Saint Nihal Singh. "An idea of the gigantic strides that the Indian cotton mill industry ' has ' taken can be formed by studying the figures. In 1909-10 the number of mills had grown to be 216; -with 5,773,824 spindles, 74,585 looms, giving employment to 215,419 persons, and producing 593,206,8551bs of yarn and 215,360,904ib5 ! of cloth. During 1911-12 the Indian mills consumed 60,000,000cwt out of the 14,000,000cwt* of cotton India had produced during that year. It would be idle to pretend that India has managed, as yet, to introduce more than the thin edge of its wedge into the oak of the Lancashire mill industry, or to assert that the giant does not still stand seemingly unshaken m its strength and glory. The Indian mills (together with the hand-loom weavers), do, what they- may, are not capable of supplying more than a fraction of the piece goods required by 321,000,000 natives. India, during 1911-12, was compelled to import; £23,0.0,000 worth . pf" cotton cloth, "of;' which more than nine-tenths came fromi Lancashire. Oddly enough, Lancashire! found tlie last year, to be one of the [ most profitable m the annals of, its' trade ■ with India. Practically all the - better ,1 grade of cloth consumed 'm Hindostori I has to be imported from abroad—^mostly from Lancashire. Hindostan is making! herculean attempts to improve the • quality of the cotton it gro.ws and the; cloth made from it, and is rapidly sue- j ceedihg." ___________■'.'". ' ' I