99 



not turn out, and the weaving of superior cloths for women 

 will doubtless still exist ; but on the whole the trade of the 

 hand-loom weavers will have shrunk to small dimensions. The 

 sufferings of the weavers are great and such as to excite 

 commiseration, but these sufferings are no more than have 

 always been caused to protected classes whenever labour- 

 saving machinery has been brought into use. In England, for 

 instance, the sufferings of weavers were even more intense than 

 those of the corresponding classes in India, owing to the simul- 

 taneous introduction of machinery both in manufactures and 

 agriculture and the consequent economising of labour in both 

 directions. ^^ A writer describing the condition of the weavers 

 in the early years of the present century states : " The most 

 miserable class of artizans were the hand-loom weavers, who 

 long continued to carry on their trade at home. The use of 

 power looms was slowly adopted ; and even after they were 

 generally introduced, the hand-loom weaver could not change 

 his mode of life, but continued to practise his craft at home. 

 He could only earn miserable wages. He lived an isolated, 

 degraded life, and it was the hand-loom weavers who were the 

 foremost in the destruction of machinery and the burning of 

 mills. The Luddites, authors of the most destructive riots which 

 began at !N"ottingham, were, for the most part, hand-loom 

 weavers. As prices rose and distress became more general, 

 these men more and more looked upon the machinery as the 

 cause of all their woes, and joined eagerly in their destruction." 

 In India the abundance of waste lands and the possibility of 

 a portion of the weaving population finding work in the cul- 

 tivation of lands is some mitigation, however inadequate, of 

 their unfortunate position. 



41. Another industry which has suffered from foreign- 

 competition is the manufacture of iron. 

 ma^'facSofiro'k.*^' ^^^^^ contaius an abundant supply of iron 

 ore and native works for iron smelting were 

 not very long ago scattered all over the Peninsula, and Indian 

 steel was famous. Dr. Buchanan has described minutely the 

 processes employed by native manufacturers in 1800 for smelt- 

 ing iron in the districts of Salem, Coimbatore, Malabar and 

 South Canara. The charcoal used was very great in compari- 

 son with the results obtained. In Salem, it is stated that iron 

 ore containing 72 per cent, of metal, yields only 15 per cent, 

 of bar iron. The clearance of forests and the consequent rise 

 in the price of charcoal have nearly extinguished this indus- 

 try ; anrjl iron smelters in many regions are the hardest 



*3 See Mrs. Creighton's Social History of England^ 



