Full text: Report of the Royal Commission on Labour in India

MIGRATION AND THE TACTORY WORKER. 
and metal works fo m three groups of about the same size, an number 
about a million in the aggregate, while the remaining perennial factories, 
which are scattered over a large number of industries, employ possibly 
a quarter of a million persons in all. 
Cotton Textiles. 
Since the middle of last century, Bombay, on account of its excel- 
fent shipping and railway facilities and business ;enterprise, has dominated 
the cotton textile industry. There are still about 118,000 workers in the 
mills of Bombay City and Island. The second centre of the industry is 
Ahmedabad, in Gujerat, with about 70,000 operatives ; other centres in 
the Bombay Presidency include Sholapur, Surat, Broach and Jalgaon. 
The 203 cotton mills of the Presidency employ in all about 232,000 per- 
sons. The remaining 92 mills with about 106.000 operatives are 
distributed over many provinces and towns. Most important 
among these are Madras, Madura and Coimbatore in the Madras 
Presidency, Nagpur in the Central Provinces, Cawnpore in the United 
Provinces, and the vicinity of Calcutta. There has recently been a ten- 
dency for the industry to push into the smaller towns in the cotton- 
growing tracts. These have the advantage, not possessed by Bombay, 
of proximity to recruiting grounds for labour and to the markets for both 
the raw material and the manufactured article. Generally speaking, 
the industry has been expanding nearly everywhere except in Bombay, 
and the decline in employment in that city has been balanced 
by the expansion elsewhere. as the following figures show :— 
Operatives 
10,200 
67,000 
24 10 
327,000 
324,000 
325,000 
332,000 
339,000 
343,000 
319,000 
238.000 
10 
1099 
20, 
There has also been an expansion in Indian States, which are not included 
in any of the figures given above. The industry is largely in Indian hands. 
In Bombay, Parsees, who were responsible for its initiation, and Gujerati 
Hindus have the biggest interests and the latter class control nearly all 
the mills in Ahmedabad. Europeans control some mills in both these 
centres and they and Hindus of various provinces are responsible for most 
of the mills in the smaller centres. Musalmans control some mills in 
Bombay, but few, if any, elsewhere. A considerable number of English- 
men. drawn mainly from Lancashire. are amnloved in the mills as managers
	        
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