it M. a day as the joint earnings of himself, his wife, a boy 

 and a girl. Those that wield the machinery should lay their 

 heads together and devise means to teach the people how 

 better to employ their hands in other crafts. Another reason 

 why Indian looms can still compete with Lancashire goods 

 is that the European process of manufacture has not yet 

 been able to give the fabrics that strengh for which native 

 manufactures have a reputation. Nor has machinery yet 

 been able to make those gossamer fabrics for which a 

 wealthy Indian always paid a fabulous price." In the 

 present stage of industrial development it is the useful and 

 not the artistic and ornamental that is likely to be sought 

 after in this country, and it is perhaps right that this should 

 be so. When the whole community was divided into two 

 sections, one consisting of a few individuals enormously rich 

 and living entirely on the produce of the labour of the other 

 consisting of an immense mass of the population in abject 

 poverty whose property and even life were completely at 

 their mercy, there was room for the existence of a class of 

 handicraftsmen who could obtain a living by manufacturing 

 articles of luxury. Now the greater diffusion of wealth and 

 the decline of the classes who patronized them have rendered 

 it necessary that these artizans should turn their attention 

 to the manufacture of such articles as are in general demand 

 among the population. When wealth increases and a class 

 of merchant princes such as mark a high and not a low stage 

 of industrial and commercial development springs up, there 

 will again arise a demand for articles of luxury, though not 

 necessarily of the old type. 



The condition of black-smiths, brass-smiths, gold-smiths, 

 carpenters and masons is very prosperous, owing to the 

 demand for jewels, for substantial houses and for metal 

 vessels which are coming into general use. The cheapened 

 cost of metal including gold and silver, has created the 

 demand for metal vessels and jewels. Since 1850, about 

 140 millions sterling worth of gold and a still larger value 

 of silver have been imported into the country, and this great 

 influx of the precious metals provides sufficient occupation 

 for gold -smiths. The wages of artizans generally, as will be 

 seen from the statement of wages printed in the appendix 

 V.-F. (h), have greatly risen. Of the Coimbatore District, 

 Mr. Nicholson remarks that town wages are very high ; higher 

 indeed, considering the efficiency of the workman, than in 

 England. Irrespective of the quantity of work, the food pur- 

 chasing power of the wages of skilled labour in towns is 

 quite equal to that of similar wages in England, where 



