Part 3 (2/2)
In eastern Mysore women of all castes except Brahmans bought cotton and wool at weekly markets, spun at home, and sold the thread to weavers.
Men and women thus found a profitable occupation. In Coimbatore, the wives of all the low cla.s.s cultivators were great spinners.
The statistics of weavers show that they also were as numerous as the spinners. In the Patna city and Behar district, the total number of looms employed in the manufacture of chaddars and table cloths was 750, and the value of the annual manufactures was Rs. 5,40,000 leaving a profit of Rs. 81,400, deducting the value of thread. This gave a profit of Rs. 108 for each loom worked by three persons or an income of Rs. 36 a year for each person. But the greater part of the cloth-weavers made coa.r.s.e cloth for country use to the value of Rs. 24,386,621 after deducting the cost of thread. This gave a profit of Rs. 28 for each loom.
In Shahabad weavers worked in cotton only. 7,025 houses of weavers worked in cotton and had 7,950 looms. Each loom made an annual income of Rs. 20-3/4 a year and each loom required the labour of a man and his wife as well as one boy or girl. But as a family could not be supported for less than Rs. 48 a year, Dr. Buchanan suspected that the income of each loom given above was understated.
In the Bhagalpur district some worked in silk alone. A great many near the town made Tasar fabrics of silk and cotton intermixed; 3,275 looms were so employed that the annual profit of each weaver employed in the mixed silk and cotton industry was calculated to be Rs. 46 besides what the woman made.
For the weaving of cotton-cloth, there were 7,279 looms. Each loom yielded a profit of Rs. 20 a year. But by another calculation, Dr.
Buchanan estimated it to be Rs. 32 a year.
In the Gorakhpur district there were 5,434 families of weavers possessing 6,174 looms and each loom brought an income of Rs. 23-1/2.
Dr. Buchanan thought this was too low an estimate and believed that each loom brought an income of Rs. 88 in the year.
In the Dungarpur district ”Maldai” cloth was manufactured. It consisted of silk warp and cotton woof. 4,000 looms were employed in this work and it was said that each loom made Rs. 20 worth of cloth in a month, which Dr. Buchanan considered too high an estimate. About 800 looms were employed in making larger pieces in the form of Elachis.
In the Purniya district weavers were numerous.... In Eastern Mysore cotton-weavers made cloth for home-use as silk weavers produced a strong rich fabric. Workmen who made cloth with silk borders earned As. 6 a day and those who made silk cloth earned As. 4.
Thus we see that crores of rupees were earned by these spinners and weavers by following their n.o.ble and honest calling. The decentralisation of the industry--every village, town and district having always at its command as much supply as it needed--automatically facilitated its distribution and saved the consumer from Railway Excise and all sorts of tariffs and middlemen's profits that he is a victim to to-day. If we cannot return to these days--though there is no reason, except our own bias and doubt why we should not--can we not at least so organise our industries as to do away without much delay with the foreign cloth with which our markets are being dumped to-day?
_Y. I.--15th Sep. 1920._
HAND-SPINNING AGAIN
_The Servant of India_ has a fling too at spinning and that is based as I shall presently show on ignorance of the facts. Spinning does protect a woman's virtue, because it enables women, who are to-day working on public roads and are often in danger of having their modesty outraged, to protect themselves, and I know no other occupation that lacs of women can follow save spinning. Let me inform the jesting writer that several women have already returned to the sanct.i.ty of their homes and taken to spinning which they say is the one occupation which means so much _barkat_ (blessing). I claim for it the properties of a musical instrument, for whilst a hungry and a naked woman will refuse to dance to the accompaniment of a piano, I have seen women beaming with joy to see the spinning wheel work, for they know that they can through that rustic instrument both feed and clothe themselves.
Yes, it does solve the problem of India's chronic poverty and is an insurance against famine. The writer of the jests may not know the scandals that I know about irrigation and relief works. These works are largely a fraud. But if my wise counsellors will devote themselves to introducing the wheel in every home, I promise that the wheel will be an almost complete protection against famine. It is idle to cite Austria. I admit the poverty and limitations of my humanity. I can only think of India's _Kamadhenu_, and the spinning wheel is that for India. For India had the spinning wheel in every home before the advent of the East India Company. India being a cotton growing country, it must be considered a crime to import a single yard of yarn from outside. The figures quoted by the writer are irrelevant.
The fact is that in spite of the manufacture of 62.7 crores pounds of yarn in 1917-18 India imported several crore yards of foreign yarn which were woven by the mills as well as the weavers. The writer does not also seem to know that more cloth is to-day woven by our weavers than by mills, but the bulk of it is foreign yarn and therefore our weavers are supporting foreign spinners. I would not mind it much if we were doing something else instead. When spinning was almost compulsorily stopped nothing replaced it save slavery and idleness. Our mills cannot to-day spin enough for our wants, and if they did, they will not keep down prices unless they were compelled. They are frankly money-makers and will not therefore regulate prices according to the needs of the nations. Hand-spinning is therefore designed to put millions of rupees in the hands of poor villagers. Every agricultural country requires a supplementary industry to enable the peasants to utilise the spare hours. Such industry for India has always been spinning. Is it such a visionary ideal--an attempt to revive an ancient occupation whose destruction has brought on slavery, pauperism and disappearance of the inimitable artistic talents which was once all expressed in the wonderful fabric of India and which was the envy of the world?
And now a few figures. One boy could, if he worked say four hours daily, spin 1/4 lb. of yarn. 64,000 students would, therefore, spin 16,000 lbs.
per day, and therefore feed 8,000 weavers if a weaver wove two lbs. of hand-spun yarn. But the students and others are required to spin during this year of purification by way of penance in order to popularise spinning and to add to the manufacture of hand-spun yarn so as to overtake full manufacture during the current year. The nation may be too lazy to do it. But if all put their hands to this work, it is incredibly easy, it involves very little sacrifice and saves an annual drain of sixty crores even if it does nothing else. I have discussed the matter with many mill-owners, several economists, men of business and no one has yet been able to challenge the position herein set forth. I do expect the 'Servant of India' to treat a serious subject with seriousness and accuracy of information.
_Y. I.--16th Feb. 1921._
A PLEA FOR SPINNING
A determined opposition was put up against the conditions regarding Swades.h.i.+ that were laid down in the civil disobedience resolution pa.s.sed by the All-India Congress Committee at Delhi. It was directed against two requirements, namely, that the civil resister offering resistance in terms of that resolution was bound to know hand-spinning and use only hand-spun and hand-woven _khadi_; and that in the event of a district or tahsil offering civil disobedience _en ma.s.se_ the district or the tahsil concerned must manufacture its own yarn and cloth by the hand. The opposition betrayed woeful ignorance of the importance of hand-spinning.
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