El Paso herald. (El Paso, Tex.) 1901-1931, 1910-08-13
FRANK G.. CARPENTERS LETTER.
c. LETTER
The Carnegies OF India

: A native can live on less than SO a
month, and all he makes over that is
clear profit Our chief trouble is that
the hands will stop work if they get
money ahead. They will labor for two
or three months, and then lay off and
spend what they have saved. II a
man has hundred rupees $3.50 ahead,
he will, like as not, leave the mills and
go back to his native village and spend
a year or more in riotOus living. When
he has spent all he has, and all he can
borrow, he will come back half starv-
ing and ask for a place We do what
we can to keep our hands, and to edu-
cate them for their work. We have
pension fund. 10 which the men can
contribute a certain percentage of their
incomes, the company paying them div
idends upon their savings"
The Worlds Second Cotton Port.
Coming back from my interview with
Mr.. Tata to the Tai Mahal Hotel, I
passed along lines of bullock carts car
rying cotton through the city. A con-
tinuous procession Of these may be seen
here at all hours of the day through
out the year Bombay's prosperity is
founded upon cotton. 1t has an enorrn-
Gus market. and its shipments of raw
cottons and cotton goods approximate
$4,000. 900 a year. 1t has cotton mills
here and there throughout the city, and
their smokestacks are to be seen every
where. This province is one of the
largest of the cotton producers and il
does more shipping and weaving than
any other. There are about 80 mills in
Bombay alone, or more than one-third
of all the cotton mills of the country.
The largest mill owners are the Tatas,
the Sassoons. and ,other millionaire
Parsees The capital invested in the
business, all told amounts to 100000. 900
or more.
Founded on Our Civil War.
The cotton industry of India was made
by our civil war. They were growing
cotton long before that, but the exports
never averaged more than S15,OOO,00o a
year. When the war began and our
cottons were shut out of England. those
Of India leaped TO the front, and the
year the war closed they had reached
the enormous total of S1S5,000,000. That
was the booming time for Bombay. The
people thought there would be no end
to their prosperity Land went up sew
eral hundred percent and every one
thought that this would be the great
port of the world. Then came the sur
render of Lee, and cotton dropped like
a shot 1t was 20 cents a pound, and il
went down to % and continued to drop
This made a panic in Bombay The
Parsee banks failed for millions and
thousands were bankrupt. The cotton
amounted to only 100000 Since
that time most of the present mills have
been built, and the exports of raw cot
ton have risen The latter are now run
ming at something like sS5.000.00O a
year. while the exports of manufactured
goods are S35,OOo.0O0-
India Needs a Tariff.
What the industry needs is Il pro-
tective tariff, and especially so against
The Manchester mill men,
however, will now allow parliament TO
grant this. and by so doing they are
keeping India back. If the British
would give the country the same rights
that we of the United States have as to
such matters India could not only make
all the cotton goods used by her 800. 000. |
900. but could export goods to China
and the other countries of Asia. A pro- .
tective tariff would turn Hindustan !
into beehive ond would make it one |
of the richest instead Of as it is now, !
one of the poorest of lands
Frank G. Carpenter.