INDIA. 



433 



its report in November, 1890. The commission 

 do not recommend a limitation of the hours of 

 labor for men, but for women they would set the 

 limit at eleven and for children at six and three 

 quarter hours a day, and they would introduce 

 compulsory Sunday rest for all factory labor ex- 

 cept when one or more native holidays occur in 

 the week. The payment of wages monthly is 

 recommended, and employers are advised" to 

 adopt more generally the system of providing 

 medical treatment and drugs for their work 

 people and to start provident funds for insuring 

 them against accidents and disability and schools 

 for the education of juvenile laborers. The op- 

 eratives are accustomed to work from dawn till 

 dusk, and they prefer not to be restricted to 

 shorter hours. The commissioners declare their 

 opinion to be that the transformation of the con- 

 ditions of Indian labor through the supplanting 

 of household industry by factories has been ben- 

 eficial for the working classes as far as it has 

 gone. The reports of the Indian cotton mills 

 show for 1889 average gross earnings of 15 per 

 cent, and 7 per cent, dividends, while English 

 mills earned on the average 6 per cent, on the 

 invested capital and divided 3f per cent, among 

 the stockholders. 



The promised repeal of the English duty on 

 silver plate gave hopes of an extraordinary de- 

 velopment of their industry to the silver workers 

 of India, who already find a market for their 

 goods in Paris. The condition that imports 

 shall be of a guaranteed degree of fineness cre- 

 ated a difficulty that the Indian Government is 

 studying to overcome. The metal can be tested 

 at the mints in Calcutta and Bombay : but the 

 silversmiths all over India can not afford to send 

 articles to the mint to be assayed and returned 

 to be finished and then sent a second time to the 

 port of shipment. Unless the touchstone test, 

 which is in use in France, is acceptable to the 

 English Government, it may be necessary to es- 

 tablish assay offices at the chief centers of silver 

 manufacture, such as Dacca and Cuttack in Ben- 

 gal, Delhi in northern India, and Tanjore and 

 Trichinopoly in southern India. A society, of 

 which Sir George Birdwood is chairman, has been 

 formed in England for preventing the decay of 

 indigenous decorative art in India by encourag- 

 ing native artisans to continue in the practice 

 of their hereditary handicrafts and spreading a 

 knowledge of the beauty and cheapness of their 

 products in Europe. 



Navigation. In 1888-'89, 1.818 British ves- 

 sels, of 2,814,877 tons, were entered and 1,872. of 

 2,898,135 tons, cleared at Indian ports; 1,071 

 British Indian vessels, of 155,234 tons, were en- 

 tered and 1,125, of 155,820 tons, cleared ; 657 

 foreign vessels, of 309,104 tons, were entered and 

 594, of 394,067 tons cleared ; and 1,635 native 

 vessels, of 80,964 tons, were entered and 1,713, of 

 85,131 tons, cleared, making the total number 

 arrived 5.181, of 3,450,179 tons, and the total 

 number cleared 5,304, of 3,533,153 tons. Of the 

 vessels entered 755, of 1,408,331 tons, and of 

 those cleared 967, of 1,735,626 tons, were steam- 

 ships that passed through the Suez Canal. 



Railroads. The mileage of railroads on 

 April 1, 1890, was 16,095. The number of pas- 

 sengers in 1889 was 110,650,472, against 103,156,- 

 013 in 1888 ; the number of tons transported 

 VOL. xxx. 28 A 



was 22,249,111 ; the receipts were Rx 20,493,663 ; 

 expenses, Rx 10,377,401. The railroads have in 

 recent years earned nearly 5 per cent, on their 

 capital ; but the Government, although the guar- 

 anteed interest is never more than 5 per cent., 

 has continued to lose heavily because the inter- 

 est is payable in gold, while the earnings are paid 

 in silver. The railroads are often very costly 

 works, yet the rates charged average less than 

 half a cent a mile for passengers and 1 cent per 

 ton per mile for freight of a bulky nature, like 

 coal and grain. The mileage is increasing at 

 the rate of 800 to 1,000 miles a year. In 1889 

 there were 869 miles of new railroads opened. 

 In 1889-'90 the railroads earned 4'78 per cent, 

 on the the capital, of which the state received 

 4-47 per cent. The average rate of guaranteed 

 interest was 4f per cent., and the net loss to the 

 state was very nearly Rx 1,000,000. The Man- 

 dalay Railroad, constructed by the state, has 

 paid in the first year its working expenses and 

 the interest on the capital expended, and the 

 Government has announced the intention of 

 keeping the Burman system in its own haryis 

 and of spending Rx 500,000 a year in its ex- 

 tension. A branch line through a wheat and 

 cotton district to the junction of the Chindwin 

 and Irrawaddy has been begun, a continuation 

 to Bhamo is projected, and another line through 

 the Shan country, rich in minerals, to the Chi- 

 nese province of Yunnan is in contemplation. 



Posts and Telegraphs. During the fiscal 

 year 1888-'89 the posts transmitted 260,628,110 

 letters and 22,696,378 newspapers. The receipts 

 were Rx 1,281,540, and the expenses Rx 1,342,- 

 452. The length of telegraph lines on April 1, 

 1889, was 33,462 miles, with 99.654 miles of wire. 

 The number of paid dispatches was 3,010,894. 

 The receipts were Rx 742,148, and the expenses 

 Rx 704,092. 



The Indian Congresses. The National Con- 

 gresses came into existence during Lord Ripon's 

 indulgent administration. Their object is the 

 defense of the political interests of the native 

 races and the presentation of their desires to the 

 Government. The earlier congresses were com- 

 posed of Hindus, with a sprinkling of native 

 Christians and Parsees. During the present 

 vice-regal administration the Government has 

 striven to discourage and check the movement. 

 While the congresses have become more repre- 

 sentative, influential persons and classes have 

 fallen away on account of the attitude of the au- 

 thorities. The Mohammedans, who held aloof 

 from the earlier congresses because they were 

 mainly supported by Bengal Hindus, were repre- 

 sented in the fifth Congress that was hem in 

 Bombay at the end of 1889 ; but the presence of 

 a few "Mohammedan delegates was the signal 

 for a counter-movement, the organization of a 

 Patriotic Anti-Congress League, and for anti- 

 Congress meetings that had the almost unani- 

 mous support of the great Mohammedan com- 

 munity in Bombay. The influential Parsee colo- 

 nies in Bombay and northwest India also frowned 

 on the movement, and the Parsee representa- 

 tion was smaller than in previous congresses. 

 The Hindu magnates and rulers have, as a rule, 

 openly discountenanced the movement, which 

 they regard as a manifestation of the dangerous 

 radicalism and revolutionary spirit of the ad- 



