Differential Initial Conditions and Performance: An Overview

Although the Indian cotton textile industry was already well established when the Japanese cotton textile industry made its appearance, the two seemed to be subject to similar initial conditions at the beginning of the 1880s when the curtain for our inquiry rises. The Indian industry started in 1854 with one mill of 30 000 spindles and 500 workers, focused entirely on spinning. Its yarn production was of the coarsest variety and mostly for home consumption by hand weavers. By 1858 there were four mills and about 108 000 spindles, 4600 looms and 15 000 workers on the rolls. In 1876 there were over 1 million spindles and 9000 looms. By the end of the century there were no less than 193 mills, 5 million spindles, 40 000 looms, and 160 000 workers. Tables 2.1 and 2.2, which probably underestimate the number of spindles present in 1900, none the less indicate the rather respectable growth of the industry between 1854 and 1900. Short-staple Indian cotton, augmented by about 3 per centimported cotton, was spun into relatively coarse yarn. Working in factories modelled after those in Lancashire, mill operatives, mostly male, laboured a single dawnto-dusk shift, which meant 10 hours in the winter and 14 hours in the summer.