93 



The ' Banias ' or native dealers now send to England a con- 

 siderable number of direct orders, and several of the principal 

 ' Banias ' have their own agents or representatives in Man- 

 chester who ship direct to their orders." In the Madras town, 

 I am informed that with the aid of the facilities afforded by the 

 Bank of Madras and other banks for obtaining loans, native 

 merchants with small means are in increasing numbers carrying 

 on a trade in articles of foreign merchandise. In Cocanada, 

 which is daily rising in importance as a commercial centre, 

 the competition of native merchants has led to the closing of 

 some European firms. The direct trade of India with the 

 countries of Continental Europe has made it more difficult for 

 English merchants to combine to keep natives out of mercantile 

 pursuits in which the latter may not hitherto have had a share. 

 For instance until April 1885, with a view to keep Indian cotton 

 manufactures out of the China market, the freight to China was 

 kept by a combination of English steamer companies at the 

 prohibitive rate of B,s. 15 a ton, and repeated efforts on the part 

 of the Bombay mill owners failed to effect a reduction lower 

 than Es. 12. The Italian line of steamers then stepped in and 

 accepted freight at Es. 8 and the consequence has been that the 

 English companies themselves have since reduced the rate to 

 Es. 5. 



39. There is, however, very considerable truth in the com- 

 plaint that foreign trade has aft'ected pre- 

 geno^ industries. ™^ judicially the old manufacturing industries 

 of the country and impoverished the classes 

 engaged in them. The spinning and weaving trades, especially, 

 have suffered severely from foreign competition, and the former 

 as a separate profession is rapidly disappearing, what remains 

 of it being confined to the spinning of fine thread for cloths 

 of superior texture and extreme tenuity such as could not be 

 produced by machinery, and of coarse thread for the coarse thick 

 cloths woven for the use of the lower classes of the agricultural 

 population. The demand for very costly cloths of superior 

 texture worn by men of the higher classes has considerably 

 fallen, not so much owing to Manchester competition as to the 

 change of fashion, English broad cloth having, to a considerable 

 extent, superseded them as articles of dress. On the other 

 hand, there has been considerable extension of demand for 

 female colored cloths made with imported fine yarn, Kornadu 

 cloths for instance ; and in particular centres of industry such 

 as Kornadu, Kuttalam and other places, the position of the 

 weavers Jias really improved. Large sections of the agricultural 

 population still use coarse cloths made of country yarn which, if 



