AND ON THE CONTINENT.
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labour to-day is rather lower than higher. The number of opera-tives, up to this time 5 to (5 times as many as the English , is to-day in the best spinning-mill of Bombay only 3^ times as high(1G)—i.e., does not stand far behind the German. Add to thisthat the prices of food have not increased to the same extent asthe fall of exchange, but that they will rather remain for a longtime to come extremely cheap owing to the increasing openingout of the interior by railways (17). This also acts like a rise inwages, and increases the labour capacity.
We dare not for a moment think that in India it is a question ofthe introduction of industrial labour into what has been up to nowa non-industrial country, as, say, into Bussia. On the other hand,India, as an industrial country, was up to tho beginning of thiscentury superior to Western countries; it is the mother-countryof tho textile industry, and up to the time of Arkwright possessedthe monopoly of fine yarns. There is now no doubt that underthe attack of the factory system Indian industry launched out intothe course which everywhere leads, under similar conditions, to pro-gress. To begin with, cottage industry devoted itself to specialties,which, indeed, were dearer than European goods, but were stillpreferred by the rich of the country as articles of luxury. On theother hand, India plunged quickly and energetically into thefactory system, under the protection of the falling exchange. Aseverywhere in Europe the hand-weaving districts have becomeseats of the modern textile industry, India also appears destinedfor the same future.
Mr. James Platt and Mr. Henry Lee, two authorities on thecotton industry, agree with each other by reason of many-sidedpractical experiences in India, that in no country on the earth,except in Lancashire , do the operatives possess such a natural leaningto the textile industry as in India. “We have not to deal herewith a class of savages, but with a people that takes to everythingextremely quickly, and which, as experience shows, can be taughtwith extraordinary rapidity as new spinning-mills continuallyrequire new hands” (18). If centralised industrial progress, there-