3. • In 1498 Vasco da Gama opened sea
route to India
• Before 1498, the civilizations of
Europe and India virtually, and in a
greatly limited sense, geographically
isolated from one another.
• Rise of Islam: Changez Khan and
Temurlang.
• Even after 1498, in fact till the year
1800, the relation between East and
west still continued to be conducted
within a framework and on terms
established by Asian nations.
Vasco da Gama
5. • For the two hundred and thirty years after
Albuquerque’s disastrous attempt to challenge
the power of the Zomorin of Calicut (1506)-he
had to be carried unconscious to his ship-no
European nation attempted any military
conquest or tried to bring any ruler under
control. In 1739, for example, the Dutch who
came up against the Raja of Travancore had to
surrender.
6. • Company settlement made possible in Madras
in 1708 after grant of 5 villages by regime in
Delhi.
• In addressing the Emperor one of the
Englishmen described himself as “the smallest
particle of sand, John Russell, President of
East India Company with his forehead at
command rubbed on the ground”
• Europe at the time had but little to offer to
Asian Countries
• Founding of East India Company in 1600
7. • Company’s attempt to establish trade with China
were unsuccessful
• Tried to dispose English woollen cloth on spice-
islander
• Discovered: only commodity acceptable was
Indian textiles and it prompted it to seek a
market for its woollen goods in India
• Ideas was to buy inn return the Indian cotton and
silks wanted by spice-islands
• English ships reached Surat (Gujarat) in 1608.
• In 1611 the company's factor wrote top directors
in England “ Concerning cloth, which is the main
staple commodity of our land.....it is so little
regarded by the people of this country that they
use it but seldom”
8. • Decade later company abandoned hope for big Asian
market for English cloths
• Some other commodity had to be battered if company
wished to get hands on spices and pepper of Malay
• Other alternatives: looking glasses, sword blades, oil
paintings, drinking glasses, quicksilver, coral and lead.
• To simulate the demand for English lead, it was decided
to send out “plumbers to teach them the use of pumps
for their gardens and spouts on their houses”.
• Followed by scheme to persuade Jahangir to pay for
erection of waterworks for the supply of Agra.
• London Directors heard “ Indians are superstitious and
wash their hands whenever they go to their worship”,
immediately ordered the dispatch of a consignment of
wash-basin for trial sale
• It was concluded that “no commodity brought out is
staple enough to provide (in return) cargo for one ship”
9. • Company was compelled to fall back on the
export of bullions (in form of gold and silver)
for purchase of goods in India
10. • The Moghul empire declined in the first half of the
eighteenth century: more precisely, effective central
control over the Empire’s territories was loosened and
lost after the death of Bhadur Shah-I in 1712.
• The decline of central Moghul power did not mean
much to economy is evident from a quick look at the
trade figures of the economy after Moghul decline.
• In 1708, Britain imported goods from India worth
4,93,257 pounds and exported in return goods worth
1,68,357 pounds.
• By 1730, while the imports to England rose to
10,59,759, the exports fell to 1,35,484 pound .
• In 1748, imports into Britain were still 10,98,712 and
the exports had declined further to 27224 pounds. The
balance was paid by Britain in bullion.
• In fact between 1710 and 1745, India received
17047173 pound in bullion.
11. • By 1757, the East India Company, with the
support of a powerful Hindu capitalist, had
gained a foothold in politics of Bengal.
• Hindu merchants were keen to associate with
foreigners to reap huge profits.
• The east India company received the right of
revenue of a district: the twenty-four
Pargannahs.
• By 1764 Moghul emperor was forced to
extend the revenue rights of the company to
other territories in Bengal, Bihar and Orissa.
12. • The company’s early administered in Bengal is
too sordid: it used its monopoly positions to
impose taxes of numerous kinds on different
products including salt, betel–nut, tobacco .
• The Indian textile industry declined before the
industrial revolution in Britain. The
displacement of Muslim aristocracy
simultaneously displaced domestic demand.
• A famine in Bengal in 1770 decreased Bengal’s
population by a third.
• The company’s behaviour toward the weaver
was deleterious.
13. • Political power of English allowed entire good
to be sold to them.
• A document of that time noted: “ they
trade.....in all kind of grains, linen and
whatever other commodities are provided in
the country. In order to purchase these
articles, they force their money on the riots
and having by these oppressive methods
bought the goods at a low rate, they oblige
the inhabitants and the shopkeepers to take
them at a high price, exceeding what is paid in
the markets. There is now scarce anything left
in the country”
14. • After the company took over the
administration of Bengal, the once favourable
balance of trade was reversed.
• In 1773, a report made to parliament
calculated revenue collections to be
1,30,66,761 pounds for six years. And
expenditure was 90,27,609 pounds. Company
was left with 40,37,152 pounds.
• This surplus was used to purchase Indian
products for exports into Britain: thus did the
colonial “drain” begin.
15. • Bengal had a surplus on trade with other parts
of India and these revenues were used by East
India Company to finance military campaign in
Madras and Bombay.
• Also to finance local cost of servants and
private traders.
• The annual net transfer of resources to the
U.K. Amounted to about 1.8 million pounds in
1780.
• Indian cotton manufactures continued to be
to be imported into Britain.
• It reached peak in 1798 and in 1813 it was
about 2 million pounds.
16. • Industrial revolution in England revolutionized
textile industry, the cost dropped to nearly nine-
tenths.
• But Indian goods were still in demand: WHY?
• Even thirty years after industrial revolution,
Indian goods were still cheaper than machine
made goods.
• This was due to the fact that the weaving
process in England was not extensively
mechanized.
17. • Historian H.H. Wilson said: “It was stated in
evidence ( In 1813) that the cotton and silk goods
of India up to the period could be sold for a profit
in the British market at a price from 50 to 60 per
cent lower than those fabricated in England. It
consequently became necessary to protect the
latter by duties of 70 and 80 per cent on their
value, or by positive prohibition. Had this not
been the case, had not such prohibitory duties
and decrees existed, the mills of Paisley and
Manchester would have been stopped in their
outset, and could scarcely have been again set in
motion even by the power of steam…. The
foreign ultimately strangle a competitor with
whom he could not have contended on equal
terms”.
18. • In Britain, the power-loom was being used on a wider
scale after 1815.
• In 1814, the quantity of cotton goods exported to India
from Britain had been a mere 818,208 yards; in 1835,
the figure had risen to 51,777,277 yards.
• Duties on Indian goods imported into Britain were
finally repealed in 1846, when Britain legally accepted
the laissez-faire ideology
• By then, the British factory system’s foundations had
been firmly cemented
• There still remained the problem of silk: fine silks could
not be woven by power
• Yet a great deal of raw silk had been continuously
imported into Britain in the 1820s, where it was
worked and later exported to European markets
19. • Till the thirties, British silk goods had done well in
France, where Indian goods were officially
prohibited.
• Once the prohibition was removed, the entire
British trade collapsed in favor of Indian silks.
• The export of raw silk from India began to
decline; in 1829, India had exported silk worth
$920,000.
• By 1831, this raw silk export had fallen to $
540,000: more raw silk was being used in India
for manufactures for export
• In 1832 British silk exports to France had been
valued in the region of $5,500 and India’s stood
at $168,500.
20. • The duty on Indian finished silk goods into
Britain was fixed at 20 per cent.
• While British finished silk goods to India paid a
nominal duty of about 3-1/2 per cent.
• A proposal to equalize the duties was rejected
by a Select committee, to protect British
labourers.
• The following discussion between Mr. Cope, a
silk weaver in Britain, is not only significant,
but has contemporary connotations too:
21. Mr. Brocklehurst: What would be the effect upon this branch of your trade if the
present duty on East Indian silk goods were reduced from 20 to 3-1/2 per cent?
Mr. Cope: In my opinion, it would have the effect of destroying this branch to trade;
and if so it would rob of their employment, and consequently of the means of
living honestly by their labour, all those parties which I have named, and would
make them destitute and reckless, and cause them to become a burden to the rest
of society, whose burdens are already too heavy. It would throw out of
employment a large amount of capital and would give into the hands of foreigners
that employment by which we ought to be supported.
Mr. Elliott: Do you think that a labourer in this country who is able to obtain better
good has a right to say, we will keep the labourer in the East Indies in that position
in which he shall be able to get nothing for his food but rice?
Mr. Cope: I certainly pity the East Indian labourer , but at the same time I have a
greater feeling for my own family than for the East Indian labourer’s family; I think
it is wrong to sacrifice the comforts of my family for the sake of the East Indian
labourer Because his condition happens to be worse than mine; and I think it is
not good legislation to take away our labour and to give it to the East Indian
because his condition is worse than ours.
22. Before EIC After EIC
1. Actual producers 700 350
2. Religious, cultural and Educational Institution
and Individuals
a) Exclusively Religious
b) Cultural
c) Educational
100 of which,
40
40
20
15
3. Economics services and Police
a) Economic services
b) Police
75 of which,
60
15
20
4. Militia and Political Aristocracy
a) Militia
b) Aristocracy
75 of which,
60
15
25
5. Central Authority 50 590
6. Grand Total 1000 1000
Tax structure in India
Taking 1000 as total gross produce form agriculture and manufactures, in 1750,
Dharampal estimates the several allocation as follows: Science and Technology in 18th
Century in India
23. • There is a clear pattern in the attempts by British
manufacturers to convert India after 1813 into a
complementary satellite economy providing raw
materials and food for Britain and an ever
widening market for its manufactures.
• Twenty years after the enshrining of the free
trade legacy, Richard Cobden, one of the chief
pillars of the Manchester school suggested that
the principles of adam Smith did not govern
relations between Great Britain and India.
• In 1862, Thomas Bazley, the President of the
Manchester Chamber of Commerce, had already
decide that the “ great interest of India was to be
agricultural rather than manufacturing and
mechanical
24. • The free traders with their laissez-faire attitudes were
irked beyond reason by those nominal duties the
Indian colonial government levied on English imports
into India.
• As Harnetty notes: “The full development of India as a
source of agricultural raw materials (and this meant, of
course, cotton) was inhibited by the Indian cotton
duties which, by protecting native manufactures,
caused the consumption in India of large quantities of
raw cotton that otherwise, i.e., under “ free
competition” would be exported to Great Britain. It
followed that the duties must be abolished, thereby
enhancing the supply of cotton for british industry and
enlarging the market in India for British manufacturing
goods. Such a policy could be justified on theoretical
grounds by the doctrine of free trade”.
25. • But to encourage India as a producer of raw materials
required more than economic freedom. It also involved a
contradictory policy of governmental paternalism.
Lancashire demanded that the Government of India inspire
the development of private enterprise in the Indian empire
by financing some of this development. In line with this
demand. The authorities in India guaranteed railway
construction and undertook numerous public works. They
also undertook the experimental cultivation of cotton and,
in this connection, made the first attempt at state
interference in India in the fields of production, marketing
and trade
• In 1860, the East India and China Association was still
protesting that a new increase in the cotton duties in India
(necessitated by a deficit in the Indian budget) would give a
“ false and impolitic stimulus to yarn spun in India, thereby
serving to keep alive the ultimately unsuccessful contest of
manual power against steam machinery”.
26. • Another petition from the Manchester chamber of
Commerce in 1860 could continue to claim that any
new tariff on British imports into India would harm not
only the manufacturer of Great Britain but also the
population of India “by diverting their industry from
agricultural pursuits into much less productive
channels under the stimulus of false system of
protection.
• Sir Charles Trevelyan, finance minister of India in
1860s, was anxious to see the disappearance of Indian
weaver as a class, a development he thought best for
both Britain and India.
• India would benefit because of weaver, faced with
competition from machine made goods, would be
forced to give up his craft and turn to agriculture; the
increased labour supply would then raise output and
England would benefit since makers of cloth would be
converted into consumers of Lancashire goods.
27. • It comes as no surprise to learn that when the
cotton duties were totally abolished in 1882.
• The viceroy of India at that time, lord Ripon was
privately willing to admit that it was pressure
rather than fiscal arguments which had led to
their general repeal, and that India had been
sacrificed on the altar of Manchester.
• Chief commissioner of central province argue
that construction of a railway would not only
secure the more rapid export of raw cotton but
also would lower the cost of imported Lancashire
piece goods.
• This in turn would divert, labour from spinning
and weaving to agriculture and so lead to an
extension of areas under cultivation.
28. • The Scottish firm Fergusson & Co. Established the first
cotton mill in India at Bowreah, Calcutta with 20,000
spindles and 100 looms.
• Fergusson & Co. Also imported Scottish lassies to work
as operatives in the mill-to begin with it was shutdown
in 1840.
• In 1817, the semi-fuedal labour-thekedar apparently
had yet not made his appearance, bringing with him
the impoverished peasant to be turned to industrial
worker with option of starvation, and bare subsistence
under the asurious board of the thekedar and his
principal- a legacy which still continues
• It was in 1859 that the full implication of a restless,
alienated, mobile rural manpower were realized, not
surprisingly in Bengal through the enactment of the
permanent tenancy laws.
29. • In 1829, at Pondicherry the second cotton mill was
opened, in 1830 another at Calcutta with its supply
from south.
• These mills were producing yarn primarily for china
market and had local advantage of reduced freightage.
• The task of displacing the weaver and the spinner was
being pursued by imported piece-goods especially at
urban centres.
• The task of collection and distribution of raw cotton
was done among others by the mill owners
themselves.
• The multiplication of cotton mills came later in a
decade’s time.
30. • The German war broke out, and with it started
the hemp supply from Russia to mills in
Dundee
• Feudal Russia converted itself into a semi-
feudal one with its program of import of
continental capital and equipment and
machinery.
• The disrupted cotton supplies from American
slave plantation, following civil war in USA
(1861-1865), stimulated a cotton epidemic in
India.
• After the end of civil war, there were
bankruptcy but the mills survived.
31. • The bankruptcy of 1865 must have left a deep
and lasting impressing on Jamshed Tata, then
cotton merchant, who had been rescued by his
income from army supplies.
• In 1860 Jamshed Tata bought an old cotton mill at
Bombay and try to recondition it. In 1877 he
started the empress mills at Nagpur, well in the
interior of cotton growing area with Tata as
managing agents to it
• By 1889 there had been 17 cotton mills with 4
lakh spindles, 4600 looms and 10,000 as labour
force, along with European mangers, engineers
and technician
32. • Till 1900 domestic consumption totally from
handloom, mills mainly for china market.
• In 1927 cloth woven by handloom continued
to supply 26% of total cloth consumption in
country.
• In 1930, Arno Pearse, a Manchester man,
made a study tour in India to observe its
cotton industry. “it is estimated”, he wrote:
“that there are in India intermittently at work
5,00,00,000 spinning wheels (charkhas) which
yield 48 lbs of yarn per spindle per year, and
almost 20,00,000 handlooms.
33. • Report of the Letchemporam Iron Works; thinking that
Indian manufacture, may prove of essential benefit.
• Excursion to the diamond mines of Mallavilly, proved
favorable.
• Learned on the road, that many places in the Noozeed
Zemindary, furnished iron for common use; nearest
place was Ramanakapetth.
• 3 coss from Noozeed in the vicinity of some fine large
tanks, from which in favorable seasons a very sufficient
quantity of water might be furnished to produce a
very plentiful harvest of paddy.
• Much better buildings than Noozeed. The streets very
broad, houses good and large.
IRON WORKS AT RAMANAKAPETTAH
By Dr. Benjamin Heyne (1st September 1795)
34. • Famine of 1790-2 reduced the population from
1,00,374 in 1786 to 57,865 at the end of 1793.
• Before the famine there were 40 smelting furnaces, a
great number of silver and copper smiths, in a state of
affluence; their survivors now poor, in a wretched
situation.
• Furnaces now reduced to ten.
• I maund, sold for 2 rupees this place, found eminently
deserving of notice, in the event of adopting for any
large works of this kind, in the Company’s possessions.
The ore can be procured in any quantity, at a less
expense than anywhere else. The nearest hills afford
wood for coals in plenty; many people who would be
glad to be employed in a business.
• Six more in the Noozeed country where iron is
constantly fabricated.
35. • Opportunity afforded by the Government of
Bengal
• Survey of districts of Jabalpur, Baragaon,
Panna, Katola, and Sagur.
• 170 sers of ore, smelted by 140 of charcoal,
produced 70 sers of crude iron in ten hours.
The MODE OF MANUFACTRING IRON IN
CENTRAL INDIA
By Major James Franklin, Bengal Army, F.R.S, M.R.A.S., (1829)
36. FURNACES
• Smelting furnaces, crude in appearance, very
exact in their interior proportions.
• men ignorant of principle but construct them
with precision.
• unit of measure breadth of a middle sized man's
finger; 24 of which constitute their large and 20
their small cubit; a constant ratio of 6 to 5
• it is of the least consequence that their
dimensions are larger or smaller, so long as all the
parts are in the same proportion.
• length of these measures on an average 19.20
English inches for large cubit, 16 English inches
for small one.
37. • As no standard measure, fingers, span and
arm substituted by a piece of stick used in
practice.
• large one divided into six parts and small one
into five, of four fingers each
• length of these parts on an average 3.20
English inches.
• Geometrical Construction of the Furnace:
38. • Draw a line A.B. equal to a large
cubit of 24 digits or 19.20 English
inches
• divide it into 6 parts;
• at C erect a perpendicular.
• At C to E set off 6 parts, and it will
mark the central point of the
greatest bulge and consequently
the point of greatest heat.
• From E set off 6 more points, and
it will mark the point of cremation
• F to G, 6 parts more, will mark the
line, where it is necessary to
recharge the furnace, after the
burden has sunk thus low.
• G to D-two parts more; will give
the perpendicular height of the
furnace, in 20 parts equal to 5 feet
4 inches of English measure.
39. • To construct the interior, rule
lines parallel to the base,
through points E, F, G, and D,
and from D. (fig 1) set off three
parts to the left hand for the
top.
• bisect it at J, bisect also the
bottom at H.
• draw H, J, right angled at K, the
oblique axis of the furnace (fig
1. K-J) bisecting all the parallels
corresponding with CD (fig 2).
• make the parallels AB six parts,-
E six parts, F five parts, and D
three parts.
• rule lines through all these
points.
• geometrical outline will be
completed
40. • Appendages-Gudaira, Pachar, Garrairi,
and Akaira.
• Akaira most extraordinary implement.
(Diagram I, figs 4 and 5; and Diagram 2.
fig 1+);
• externally a clumsy mass of clay
enveloping the wind tubes (Diagram I.
fig 9) the complete fusion of this mass,
and the perfect completion of the
smelting process must be simultaneous
• if it is too small, or too large, its effect
will immediately be perceived; in the
former case the masset of crude iron
will be full of impurity, and in the latter
the iron will be consumed, and if it
cracks during the operation of smelting,
no remedy-short of dismantling the
furnace and commencing the work
again.
Diagram II
41. • mean length 4-1/2 parts, breadth 3 parts, and
mean thickness 1-1/2 parts
• exactly equal a twentieth part of the cubic
content of furnace.
• Guddaira-wedge of clay used to adjust the
vertical position of Akaira when placed in the
furnace.
• Pachar an oblong plate of clay, used in walling up
the orifice after the Akaira is placed,
• Gurairy (diagram I, fig 6) a convex plate of clay;
perforated with holes and used as a grate.
42. BELLOWS
• Made of a single goat skin, 7 parts in breadth
when doubled, and 8 parts in length; for
circular bellows of 5 parts diameter, rise 6
parts in height- having 11-1/4 circular folds;
the wooden nozzles through which the blast is
conveyed into the furnace through Akaira.
43. Nozzle of the Bellows
• Geometrically-rule a line AB equal 3
parts (Diagram II, fig 2).
• divide it into four, giving one of those
divisions to each of the legs, and two for
the space in the centre.
• set off a perpendicular from C to D equal
3 parts.
• bisect it and the middle point will mark
the apex of the central angle.
• through point D rule a line parallel to AB
and from it as a centre set off each way
3/4 of a part making together 1-1/2
parts;
• divide it also into four, giving one of each
to the legs, and two for the space in the
centre. Rule lines to connect all these
points,
• Outline complete, the exterior of the
implement is plain but the interior is
complex (Diagram II: fig 3).
Diagram II
44. • fastened to the bellows by
leathern thongs,
• blast forced through it at
an angle of 24 degrees but
when it is luted to the
wind tubes of the Akaira,
the blast enters the
furnace at an angle of 12
degrees, both vertically
and horizontally-because
those tubes are placed so
as to reduce that angle
(Diagram II, fig 1 +)
45. •furnace closed up with clay, and
the bellows luted in, represented
in Diagram III and IV; the dotted
lines showing the chimney, A the
outer walls, B a mound of earth to
strengthen walls, C an upper
chimney of moveable bricks, D
planks laid across the trench to
support the bellows and the man
who works them, E a stone
supporting one end of the plank, F
fork branches supporting an iron
bar on which the other end of
planks rests, and G a simple
apparatus for preventing the
bellows from rising from the planks
when they are worked.
46. • “The angle of the blast is also worthy of
notice, as well as the simplicity by which both
it and the obliquity of the furnace is obtained;
all these serve to show that the original plan
of this singular furnace must have been the
work of advanced intelligence, and that its
geometrical proportions have been preserved
by simple measures; hence though its original
form may be changed by caprice or ignorance,
its principle never can be lost so long as hands
and fingers remain”.
47. REFINERIES
• The refinery as crude in its
appearance, and as novel in its
construction as the furnace.
• Two refineries required for one
smelting furnace.
• To construct-arrange a number of
square un-burnt bricks, as in the
ground plan (Diagram V, fig 1),
a, a, a, a- the walls, C the seat of
the refiner, D the anvil.
• Fig 2- a side view, A the chimney,
B the refining furnace. E- piece of
crude iron under the process of
decarbonisation.
• Dimensions of chimney- about
one cubit broad, one deep and
six in length.
• Fig. 3 a front view showing the
opening of the furnace.
48. • When the walls of the chimney finished- top covered with un-
burnt bricks of an oval shape, flat below and convex above.
• Diagram VI refinery complete, refiner at work on his seat,
bellows-man plying the bellows, and various implements lying
about, A the outside of the chimney, B a mound of earth to
strengthen its wall, C the refining furnace, D a piece of crude
iron undergoing the process of decarbonisation (the dotted
showing the interior of the furnace
Diagram VI
49. MODE OF SMELTING AND REFINING
• Indian smelters use charcoal only.
• Ore- pieces about the size of a walnut.
• fill the chimney of the furnace with charcoal and burn
until all moisture expelled.
• Then throw in small basket of ore, and a larger one of
charcoal.
• Allowed to sink as low as the line G (Diagram 1. fig 1
and 2) when it is again charged.
• Ore and charcoal alternately given in the same
proportions until the operation is complete;
• Scoria begin to flow within an hour, and by that time, it
is known whether the furnace will work well or ill-the
scoria being a sure indication; it is let out by piercing
the grate with an iron spike, and the orifice is again
closed with clay as soon as it is drawn off;
50. • Bellows worked by three men- by turns;
constantly playing until the process completed.
• Time ascertained by introducing a hooked piece
of iron through the wind tubes, into the
furnace, which shows how much of the Akaira
remains.
• The appendage should be totally fused before
the operation is complete.
51. • The metal never completely melted by this
process-the heterogeneous mixture of the ore
alone is fused and thrown off in scoria.
• Iron freed from it falls by its superior gravity to
the bottom of the furnace, and coagulates
into a mass;
• Bellows removed; front part of the furnace
demolished; red hot mass dragged out,
divided by large ades* before it has time to
cool, the parts of the furnace thus broken up
require daily renewal.
52. PRODUCE
• Daily produce of four smelting furnaces,
from the 30th April to 6 June 1827, most
unfavourable portion of the year for
smelting iron.
• Each furnace yielded upon an average
about 18-1/2 Panchseri (5 sers) of crude
metal which is 38% of the ore, every
hundred sers of crude metal yielded 63 sers
of malleable iron which yielded 56% when
wrought up into bars fit for the use in the
suspension bridge.
53. QUALITY OF THE IRON
• Captain Presgrave of the Sagar Mint (an officer
very capable of judging with regard to its
quality) reported:
• “most excellent quality, possessing all the
desirable properties of malleability, ductility at
different temperatures and of tenacity for all
of which cannot be surpassed by best Swedish
iron”.
54. • Particulars Cost (Rupee)
1. Excavation/mining 25
2. four smelting furnaces, 30
two refineries, one small round furnace
3. Skins, for seven pairs circular bellows 25
Total 80
• Experiment lasted only five weeks, above outlay
calculated to last a whole season, so a portion of it is only
chargeable to the cost of iron.
• Hammers, anvils and other implement of iron, not being
perishable- chargeable only for reasonable repairs.
• Thus proper proportions of outlay is 15 rupees
COST OF THE IRON
55. Working Expenses
6 men for each smelting furnace or 24 for 4 furnace
from 30th April to 6th June, or 1-1/4 month at 4 Rs. Each per mensen 105
Charcoal for the furnace for the same period 115
For digging ore 15
Carriage of ore 15
Carriage of charcoal 15
Head-man 5
Total Cost of smelting 270
One Mistry at Rs. 8 and five lohars at Rs. 4 per mensen for
each refinery: this sum doubled for two and for a period of 5 weeks is 63
Teakwood charcoal for the refineries 53
Head man 4
Total cost of refining 120
Total cost of smelting 270
Total expenses 390
225 maunds of malleable iron produced, one rupee 12 annas per maund.
56. MANUFACTURE OF BAR IRON IN SOUTHERN INDIA
By Captain J. Campbell, Assistant Surveyor General. Madras
Establishment. (A.D. 1842).
• In the commerce between India and England, a source
of deep injury to the former country arises from
England having deprived her of the trade in cotton
cloth, the manufacture of which was, but a few years
ago, one of the most valuable and extensive of Indian
products; while from no other having been as yet
introduced as an export to balance the imports from
England,
• Among the most extensive of the exports of England to
India, is the trade of bar iron, which to Madras alone
amounts to 1,000 tons per annum; and while India is
known to produce malleable iron of a superior quality,
57. • Informed by Captain Drummond, in journal of the Asiatic
Society of Bengal, that carriage of suspension bridge
erected in Kernnon, alone cost about 80 rupees per ton, or
as much as the iron might have been made for upon the
spot.
• because English mode of manufacturing iron has been
found to be most profitable in England, it has been
supposed that similar process could answer in India.
• This process has also been styled 'scientific', but principles
of the mode of operation are still unknown and the
manufactures are unable to produce at pleasure a certain
result.
• Quantities of the results produced depend upon the
weather, and other causes as yet not explained, or beyond
the control of the workmen.
• We do not as yet even know what cast iron is; nor with any
certainty what its component parts are; nor in what it
differs from steel, or the varieties of what are generally
called carburets of iron.
58. • Such being the state of our present Knowledge
of this subject, it may be doubted if a careful
examination of the principles of the long
established, cheap, and simple mode of
manufacture of the native of India, might not
lead to improvements and modifications,
which would be found to answer better, than
the operose methods of the English
manufacture, which require much capital,
costly building, Land, a considerable trade to
make them profitable.
59. • In England the fuel most generally used in smelting the
impure iron ores of the coal fields is coke.
• Ore after being first roasted to separate the volatile
impurities, as much as possible, is exposed to its action
in blast furnaces.
• Generally about forty-five feet in height, but varying
sometimes from thirty-six feet to even sixty feet.
• In middle, furnaces are about twelve feet in diameter,
at top contracted to about four feet, at bottom, where
the blast of air is introduced by pipes from powerful
blowing machines, the diameter is only about two feet.
• The pressure upon the air forced into the furnace is
about three pounds upon the square inch, and the
quantity of air amounts generally to as much as 4,000
cubic feet per minute.
60. • The cast iron as it forms, falls down into the bottom of the
furnace; which is always hot enough to maintain it in a state of
fusion; where it is protected from the action of the blast by a
covering of fused slag which floats upon it.
• These furnaces are kept in action unremittingly, night and day,
for several years together; the metal being allowed to flow out
every twelve hours in quantities of about six tons at a time.
• The material used in building the blast furnace is principally fire
brick, and a pair of furnaces cost upwards of £1,800 sterling.
• The proportion of coal used in making a ton of cast iron, varies
very much, from three tons in Wales, to sometimes eight tons
in Derbyshire.
• But the use of heated air in blowing the furnaces has very much
increased the quantity of the products of the blast furnace, and
has also diminished the expenditure of fuel, but the quality of
the cast iron is said to be deteriorated.
• The estimated expense of making a ton of cast iron is about £3
sterling.
61. • For converting cast iron into bar iron, the first process
generally employed in England is called 'refining', and
consists in fusing about a ton of cast iron at once in flat
open furnaces about three feet square, where it is
exposed for two hours or more to the action of a
strong blast, by which it is supposed a portion of the
carbon it contains is burnt off.
• Much gas escapes from the surface of the metal during
the operation, and a large quantity of black bubbly slag
separates, after which the metal when run out and
allowed to cool, has a white silvery appearance, is full
of bubbles, is very brittle, and has acquired the
property of hardening by being suddenly cooled. In
'refining' about four or five hundredweight of coals is
used to the ton cast iron, and the metal loses from
twelve to seventeen per cent; of its weight.
62. • The 'refined' cast iron, now termed 'fine metal', is then
exposed in a reverberatory furnace, called 'puddling
furnace’ to the action of the flame of a large coal fire, by
which it is first partially melted, then falls into a coarse
powder; and on being stirred up and presented to the
flame, becomes at last adhesive and tenacious.
• It is then formed into large balls, and after receiving a few
blows from a large hammer to consolidate it, is passed
between rollers which squeeze out much of the impurities,
and form it into 'mill bar iron'.
• This is however too impure for use, and it is necessary to
cut the rough bars into pieces and to weld them together
afresh, in a 'reheating furnace', and expose them to
another rolling, and even to repeat the operation a third
time, before good tough bar iron is produced.
• In the 'puddling furnace' about a ton of coals is expended
to each ton of 'fine metal', and in the 'reheating furnace',
about 150 pounds more are expended; and in each
operation a loss of about ten per cent takes place in the
weight of metal operated upon.
63. • Upon an average about nine tons of coal are expended
in England in forming one ton of finished bar iron, and
it is probable, that if the above processes were
attempted upon any smaller scale than that of the
English works, a still greater quantity would be used.
Some of these works cost £27,000, and turn out 120
tons of iron per week.
• The mode of smelting iron used by the natives of India
appears to be very much the same from the Himalayas
down to Cape Comorin.
• The material used for the native furnaces, is the
common red potter’s clay of India, which carefully
selected, sufficient to fuse cast iron, but by mixing it
with sand, and by concentrating the heat in the centre
of the furnace as much as possible by a projecting blast
pipe, the reduction of the ore is effected before the
furnace has become much more than red hot; the
operation being completed in about a couple of hours
64. Josiah’s Adventure
• Josiah Marshall heath resigned from the East India
company in 1825 to set up an Iron and Steel Works in
India. In barest terms: a British firm in Calcutta,
presumably, a house of agency, advanced him a loan; he
spent four years in England gathering technical
information and came back with equipments and workers
to erect his works in 1830 at Porto Novo in Salem region. It
was about a ton per day unit with 2 large and 2 small
furnaces producing bar iron so produced received
approbation even in England. Josiah ran out of money; the
Government of east India company gave him Rs 1 lakh
desired and 25 years exclusive right as was given by the
British parliament to Boulton and Watt of England; but
there was difficulty using charcoal as fuel- 12 unsuccessful
trial runs were made. Again he was in financial troubles
and the Porto Novo works virtually came to an end by the
middle of the nineteenth century.
65. • The works did not terminate because the
financier foreclosed on debts or due to risk
because of technical difficulties; the works
continued for 20 years, the expected life of
the plant and equipments; other works came
up in 1839 at Barker, Bengal, and another in
1855 at Raniganj-both undoubtedly based on
coal.
• Around 1830, East India company not only
financed an Iron and Steel Works, further they
paid Josiah the highest complement of
analogy with Boultan and Watt.
66. • James Watt was of an indigent family, an artisan
instrument maker and an avid collaborator and
supplier of researches of Joseph black in the
Science of heat quantifies. Boultan was relatively
petty entrepreneur-owner of a machine shop
noted for precision jobs.
• Boultan and watt even as they struggled and
innovated dreamt of the world as market for their
steam-engine and the Birmingham works in the
18th century were famous as the Science School
of Soho.
• James watt and Joseph Black became symbols of
emulation for the mechanics and artisans flocking
to the mechanics institute during the period
when Josiah was in England surely Josiah must
have been moved as he visited the iron works of
England.
67. • There is a document dated 1841, authored by J. Campbell,
titled ‘Public Consultations. Madras Records-Indian Iron &
Steel Company of Porto Novo Weekly. This document
contains story of Josiah.
• Why did Josiah venture into iron and steel works? Why did
he chose Salem, and then port? Why did he choose
charcoal? And Why did not the works grow into a
movement despite apparent support?
• In the 19th century in the region of Salem there were
indigenous ironsmiths producing bar iron, using charcoal,
using furnaces built by them out of red potter’s clay and
sand.
• The bar iron of these virtually cottage industries here
cheaper than the cheapest bar iron imported from England;
the worst in quality was equal to the quality of England.
Indian iron was preferred by British for producing steel of
good quality.
• Josiah must have compared and concluded that charcoal
was for India the cheapest fuel.
68. • Josiah must have gone through the economics
of the processes and concluded that the
product from larger furnaces of England
would be cheaper but the high transport cost
reduced its competitive quality in the Indian
market.
• He might have foreseen the prospect of
reduced shipping cost by steam vessels
touching India in 1821.
• The other answer-growth and dynamism.
69. • Readymade distribution channels and extant users, the
internal market to be taken over to generate the
profits, to create the fabrication works on Indian soil,
to absorb the scattered iron smelters and blacksmiths
of Salem into new form of industry-to create the
Liebig’s and Lyon Plafair’s to scientifically the
efficiencies of blast furnaces to improve upon them-to
create on soils of India at the work at the Salem the
Science School of Soho? Visionary? Yes!
• Had not Josiah faced bankruptcy and persisted in 12
costly unsuccessful trial runs in his attempt to use the
indigenously available charcoal and overcome these
difficulties, perhaps through his doggedness of
purpose, perhaps by employing “the indigenous
species growing wild”-the first ever example of
indigenous RDD on process industry.
70. • His initiative did not multiply and grow, his vision
did not take on the hue of tangible reality.
• The postulated internal market was not seized, nor
did the new mode of production take root.
• Had the times changed since 1825-undoubtly yes.
Had the merchant distributors, descendant of the
Shreshthis not cooperated, did they take fright at
this new mode of industrial production seeking to
organize the scattered divided smelter into forms of
organization and knowledge which meant the end
of their old age dominance as merchants over the
artisans;
• did the smelters not came forth, or were they
shackled by their bondages to the merchants
distributors and unable to break a hold that
tradition had forged.
71. • And by same token was the supply of ore and
charcoal subject to hazards? The merchants
distributors did not rise to challenge the
English competition by the only tried and true
means-Advancement of production, the
creation of indigenous technology or
invention. The social distances were too great
unbridgeable to indigenously achieve this.
• It was less disturbing to retain their
dominance as merchant distributors and more
profitable distributing the imported English
steel. For this involved only the extinction of
indigenous iron smelter of Salem of India
72. • In 1875 the Bengal iron company had come into being
to meet the needs of railways for components
frequently required-wars had confirmed their necessity
• However in 1881 the point had yet to be grasped, the
Iron Works was in financial trouble-lack of demand.
“The shareholders have asked the government.......or
assist the present company with money or certain
concessions as the purchase of Government stores. It is
pity that a new industry of this kind should be ruined
for want of a little capital, and the government might
be little more liberal in interpreting the phrase,
‘development of the resources of the country”
• In 1882 the government took it over and seven years
later sold it to Martin & Co., to become the Bengal Iron
and Steel Co.
73. • By 1907 the issue was clear; permission was
given by the government for yet another steel
plant, and that too under Indian ownership; war
was in the air.
• In 1910 the construction of the iron and steel was
well in advance. It was reported:
“The success of the undertaking will be of great
importance to Bengal and to India. The
government of India has recognized this fact in a
practical manner by agreeing to purchase
annually from the company for a minimum
period of 10 years, at least 20,000 tonnes of steel
rail subject to government specifications being
complied with the prices comparing favourably
with the rates at which similar rails could be
delivered if imported into India”.
74. • And in 1912, Ratan J. Tata reported success:
“The company's big iron has secured a world
wide reputation and repeated orders are
coming on from Japan, where the products
has found a large and unexpected market”.
75. The Sugar Refinery
• Established at Aska, a small estate in Orissa not
far from GopaIpur on sea.
• In the 1840s a house of agency of Madras, its
constituent partners, their London agents and a
London importer with long contacts with the
house of agency, invested their money to set up
the Aska sugar refinery.
• The Aska refinery was built around the 'most-up-
to-date machinery imported in the 1850s from
the well known firm of Glasgow.
• The quality of the sugar was good, and yet "the
Aska concern seemed perpetually in trouble”
why?
76. • One learns that 'keeping down the native debts'
was not working, the debt piled up.
• The money advanced ‘to a contractor to assist in
the cultivation of cane' did not imply that the
contractor would supply the jaggery to the Aska
concern for refining into white sugar.
• He sold the jaggery to others.
• Nor did the Madras Board of Revenue permit the
sale of the land of the contractor-obviously a land
owner-to realize the debts.
• What is noteworthy also is that the Aska unit was
not an integrated one buying cane for crushing
and processing.
77. • It was only a step in the processing chain,
buying jaggery for refining into white sugar.
Obviously without assured supplies, the Aska
unit would have idle capacity and be
‘perpetually in trouble'.
• One may well ask: Why did not the land
owning contractor not honour the contract by
supplying jaggery? Who was the other buyer
of jaggery? What compelled the landowner to
break his contract and sell to another?
78. • Who was the other buyer? Sugar had been an
item of export to Asian countries long before
the British arrived-well established traditional
channels already existed.
• The peasant would cultivate the cane, do
bullock-powered crushing on the field and the
juice was converted on the field or near it to
gur or jaggery with baggasse as fuel.
• The jaggery was consumed locally, and the
surplus sent on to a manufactory for
processing into the khand, and from whence
on to export through trade networks up to the
port and on the ship thereon.
79. • The jaggery unit was perhaps owned by a richer
peasant in Ryotwari areas, or by a zamindar or by
the manufactory owner, a merchant/money-
lender
• To the manufactory owner, and the merchant
network the export of unrefined sugar by the
British may have meant merely the substitution
of one exporting community by another on
whom the taboo of sea travel did not apply-there
was no further basic change in internal
relationships.
• But in the case of white sugar refinery, the case
was different, not only did the product have
greater commercial significance by virtue of its
longer shelf-life, the refinery was jeopardizing the
existence of the merchant-moneylender himself.
80. • The Madras Board of Revenue baulked at what
should have been a reasonable request; the
peasant had to pay his cash land tax, the
merchant-moneylender was crucial for buying up
the cash crops and supplying to the port
merchants for export, and in the reverse for
distribution of imports.
• Clearly the Board of Revenue would not be a
party to the dismantling of this mercantile
network.
• Nor would the merchant-moneylender be a party
to his own extinction.
• Sugar to the peasant would be only one of the
crops, with jaggery-making a seasonal side-line
activity only.
81. • The merchant-moneylender boycott of his
crops spelled the peasants extinction.
• The merchant-moneylender must certainly
have exercised, or threatened this dire
consequence bringing the break away peasant
into line, compelling him to sell the jaggery to
the merchant-moneylender, as observed.
• One of the options was to ensure through an
attached sugarcane plantation.
82. • Under European ownership, or that of the
refineries –and this was what appears to have
been done around 1856 when a name to conjure
with in the ‘Indian Planting world’ was inducted
to operate the refinery.
• There were other solutions to be applied almost
80 years later. Imported integrated sugar factories
owned by the higher echelons of the native
merchant-money lending network, assisted by
legislation banning gur and jaggery production of
supply areas, and additional measures to ensure
supplies from the peasant farmers.
• The indigenous manufactories in particular were
to extinguish thereby, gur for obvious reasons
was not easy to be rendered extinct.
