The silver state news. [volume] (Winnemucca, Nev.) 1907-1909, 1909-03-23
The INDIAN JUTE
TRADE

bV Nlllldu II. 1hlSudCly
CouncuI- General at Calcutta.)
Practically all the jute exported from
India passes through the port of Cal
cutta. During the calendar year 1906
the value of jute and jute manufac
lures declared at this consulate general
for export to the United States was
$50, 709,426, viz: Gunny bags 5000,
234; gunny cloth, $19,8Sl,707 jute
(raw), $5,715,920; and jute butts and
reflections, 1907, 565.
The Commercial Intelligence Depart
ment, in its returns showing the sea
borne trade of British India for the
year 1906, gives the exports from Cal
cutta to the United states as follows:
Gunny bags, 13,079,600, valued at
$719,330; gunny cloth, 492, S5,420
yards, valued at $9,390,005 total, $27,
1926, or 1921 ,161 less than the
figures recorded in the consulate gener-
al, which are based on the invoices
covering all jute and jute manufactures
shipped from Calcutta to the United
States, and must be accepted as cor
rect.
| visited the modern klnnison mill,
which has a capital of $~1,000,00 and
the largest machinery made in Eng
land. 1t has $50 looms and produces
$4,000 tons of bags and hessian cloth
in fifty weeks. This mill employs A.,
900 mer, women and children.
The wages paid to men in the mills
range from 50 to SD per month, women
from $3.50 to 80, and boys and girls
from ST. to $1.75. These people subsist
principally on rice and vegetables made
up in the form of curry, which is a
peppery and sweetish mixture of rice
and vegetables, with now and then
chicken, duck or goat meat.
They all chew betel nut constantly
as a stimulant. They eat two meals a
day as a rule, one before beginning
work and one after the days work is
done. The men and boys veal breech-
clouts, or dhooties, and the women and
girls saris, which consists of 40 yards
of thin muslin wrapped in a peculiar
way about the loins and shoulders.
Primitive Mode of Living.
The people of a mill, or several miss
if the mills are located near together,
occupy a village, which is made up of
huts made of mud, bricks and palm
leaves woven into sheets and tackled
onto bamboo poles. All are matched
with a long tough grass used through
out India for covering huts and bunga-
lows, and which makes a tight, cool,
and durable roof. The fioor is made of
clay tamped down hard, which makes
a very good floor. On this floor is
spread in places mating made of BAN
boo grass. On this mating many of
the natives throw down a cotton blan-
ket, or possibly a thin mattress, for
beds. Some have a rude bed made of
four posts Is inches high with cross
head and side pieces, pinned together
and then criss- crossed with bed cords
There may be a few rude benches, but
little or no other furniture is to be
seen in the huts. The natives eat on
containing the food. The men and
boys eat first and the womne and girls
afterwards, taking what is left. The
mode of life is thoroughly primitive.
No knives, spoons or forks are used
in eating, the fingers answering all
purposes. Each indian is ambitious to
own a brass jug or pot, and these
brasses are handed down as heirlooms
and are held as almost sacred in pos
sessions. They are kept bright by
securing them with mud and water
After a meal the brassees that have
been used in any way are taken out in
the street, where the women or men, as
the case may be, squat on the ground
and rub them with the dust and water
What the United States Pays for Jute
IT might be well to consider the fact
that we are sending to India $21 ,921,
VII annually w boSo oh0 Nhoth VIM
might be made at home. We are receiv
ing articles that are made by thu
cheapest labor on earth, and which
could be made by mill labor in thu
United States. We are buying $s,787,
4S5 worth of raw jute annually ant
manufacturing it into cloth. Why mo-
buy as much raw jute as wee need ans
manufacture it into cloth and bags
This would give additional employment
to our own people and keep the profits
at home.
1t would be still better to encourage
the growth of ramie on the lands go
ing to waste in the Philippines, where
that fiber can be successfully e%ultivat
ed. Thus we would be absolutely in
dependent in respect to bags for us'