SILK 



Filatures and Mills 



INDIAN SILKS 



Official 

 Statistics. 



Filatures. 



Steam Mills. 



Burmese 

 Market. 



Bengal. 



Hurstiidabad. 

 Berhampur. 



Bardwan. 



Midnapur. 

 Bankura. 



Bbagalpur, 



five or more hands. This gives an unnecessarily low and imperfect con- 

 ception of the interests involved, since here and there throughout India 

 and Burma there is a fairly extensive village or domestic industry in 

 rearing, reeling and manufacturing, entirely disregarded by official 

 returns. Moreover, recent statistics would seem to mark a serious decline, 

 whereas the explanation of the shrinkage shown is largely the discon- 

 tinuance to chronicle certain factories. 



Filatures, Mills, etc. According to the latest volume of the Finan- 

 cial and Commercial Statistics, there were 75 silk filatures in India in 1904, 

 employing 9,526 workers, all in Bengal. There were also in the same year 

 11 silk mills, employing 2,964 workers, distributed thus : in Bengal, 

 8 mills with 1,465 employees ; in Bombay, 2 mills with 1,299 employees ; 

 and in the Panjab, 1 mill with 200 employees. According to the Imperial 

 Gazetteer (1905, iii., 209) three large silk mills (two in Bombay and one 

 in Calcutta) are worked by steam-power and are almost exclusively con- 

 cerned in catering for the Burmese market, a trade that was formerly 

 concentrated in Glasgow but is now mainly in the hands of Indian and 

 Japanese manufacturers. " The Bengal factories of to-day largely work 

 up tasar silk in place of preparing the korah silks formerly turned out 

 by them ; they are owned and managed by Natives and do not employ 

 European machinery. Besides the registered mills and factories, numerous 

 weavers own one or two looms worked by themselves and their families. 

 Silk-weaving seems intimately associated with Gujarat. From one end 

 of India to the other Gujarati silk-weavers may be found, speaking a 

 dialect of Gujarati or using Gujarati names for most of their appliances 

 and for the textiles they produce." 



The extent and location of the silk interests may now be indicated : 



BENGAL (see p. 1019). This, as already stated, is the great centre of the 

 silk-reeling industry. Formerly a largo trade also existed in the manufacture 

 of corah (korah) silks plain undyed silk piece goods, the demand for which has 

 fallen off very greatly in consequence of the greater popularity of Japanese and 

 Chinese silks ; but at the present moment the traffic in the Bengal corahs seems 

 reviving. [Cf. Indian Art at Delhi, 1903, 302-7.] Mukerji says, in his Mono- 

 graph, that with the exception of Chittagong Division, all the other portions 

 of Bengal have a silk-weaving industry. The following particulars may be given 

 of the chief centres : 



Presidency Division. The industry is confined to Murshidabad. Mulberry- 

 growing, cocoon rearing and reeling, as also silk-weaving, are all practised, and the 

 town of Mirzapur produces the most superior fabrics in the whole of Bengal ; but 

 Baluchar and other centres are also famous, especially for artistic and brocaded 

 fabrics. The trade in reeling is mainly concentrated in Berhampur and Jeaganj, 

 and there the wealthy merchants reside. During the last decade the industry 

 seriously declined, both in cocoon-rearing and corah-weaving. The census of 

 1901 shows 41,615 persons dependent on this industry in Murshidabad against 

 55,142 ten years previously. 



Bardwan Division. Silk-weaving is carried on in all the districts. Babu 

 Sukumar Haldar gives an interesting historic sketch of the silk industry of 

 Jahanabad, in the Hughli district, during the seventeenth century. In the 

 Bardwan district silk-weaving is mainly carried on in Katwa and Kalna Sub- 

 divisions, but not in Raniganj. The cocoons reared in Midnapur, and even from 

 all parts of Howrah, are utilised in the looms of Chandrakona. In Howra the 

 silk-rearing industry is of minor value, but the silk- weaving of Bankura is of great 

 importance, even more so than the rearing of cocoons and the spinning industries. 

 It is a curious circumstance that the East India Company should have striven 

 for years to establish Hughli as the centre of their silk industry and have failed 

 to induce the weavers to settle in that district. 



Bhagalpur Division. In Maldah, cocoon-rearing and silk-spinning are carried 

 on more or less extensively throughout the district, while silk-weaving is con- 



1014 



