STEAM-POWER AND HAND-POWER 185 



steam the place of these appliances was taken in 

 Europe by more skilfully designed implements, and it 

 is contended that the outturn of the hand industries 

 of India might be very largely increased by adopting 

 these European improvements. It is not a law of 

 Nature that steam-power should supersede hand- 

 power ; it has been the consequence only of the special 

 conditions of Europe. Where the power required is 

 not in excess of that which can be supplied by the 

 human bod}', it is a calculation of the relative cost 

 which decides whether steam-power or hand-power 

 shall be applied to manufacture. Hand-power is ex- 

 pensive in the West of Europe, and manufacturers 

 therefore are constantly striving to replace it by steam- 

 power ; but in India at the present day hand-power 

 is cheap, and is generally more economical (to the 

 employer) than steam-power. This general argument 

 is corroborated by the fact that the hand industries of 

 India, though languishing under the stress of Euro- 

 pean competition, do still continue to exist. If, there- 

 fore, the efficiency of the hand-power industries in 

 India could be very considerably increased, it is prob- 

 able that they would be able to compete successfully 

 with the steam-power industries of Europe. A typical 

 illustration may be taken from the hand-weaving in- 

 dustry. The hand-loom of the Indian weaver is a 

 very clumsy affair, and in Europe it has been greatly 

 improved upon by certain mechanical contrivances, 

 the principal of which is the fly-shuttle, which has 

 been in use in Europe for over a century, and by the 

 use of which the efficiency of the hand-weaver in 

 England was increased threefold.* This simple con- 



* Before the Commissioners appointed in 1837 to inquire into the 

 conditions of the hand-loom weavers of the United Kingdom, one 

 witness ascribed important results to ' the great and sudden rise of 

 wages (or earnings), due to the introduction of the fly-shuttle in 

 1789-90, by which a man could do three times as much work as 

 he did before. The cotton manufacture began about 1783 ; about 



