The Daily Bulletin (Brownwood, Tex.), Vol. 16, No. 44, Ed. 1 Wednesday, December 6, 1916 Page: 3 of 7
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NDIAN INDUSTRIES
EXPERIENCING GREAT
ERA OF PROSPERITY
Good Seasons Have Given
' Large .Crops and Aided
in Development of All
. Industries.
SIMLA. India Dec. 6. India is on
-the threshold of a new industrial era
according to the opinion expressed
generally by Indian and British bus-
iness men and officials. This coun-
trl -with its vast natural resources
is now in a comparative undeveloped
state industrially but 'a great wave
of sentiment in favor of Instituting
" measures to insure immediate and
substantial progress along this line
appears to be sweeping the nation.
A concrete indication of the recog-
nition of this feeling may be seen
in th recent appointment .by the gov-
ernment of an Indian Industrial Com-
mission made up of prominent Brit-
ish and Indian experts who are about
to start out frdm Simla on a country-wide
tour for the purpose of in-
vestigating industrial possibilities
ind making a report upon "which the
government can inaugurate measures
that will enable India -to meet trade
conditions after the war. In appoint-
ing this commission the government
announced that it believed the time
"had come to take up in a more com-
prehensive manner the question of
the development of Indian industries
and manufactures aitd expressed
sympathy with. the eager desire of a
large number xit the people for ad-
vancement .
Several reasons are assigned for
the seemingly sudden .arousal of In-
dia from the lethargy which has act-
ed as a damper to progress indus-
trially thus far. The principal causes
named are these:
Unprecedented Prosperity.
India today "is more . prosperous
than ever before in its history and
money is plentiful. This is due large-
ly to the fact that the last four mon-
soon seasons upon wbfeb the all im-
tporant crops depend have been
good.
The war also has played an Im-
portant part in this change of feel-
ing. Tot one thing it has taught the
! people of India the importance of
;.the world outside their own country.
'The vast bulk of the population- is
! illiterate and many for the first time
are beginning to get an Idea of geo-
' graphy to learn that India Is not the
' hub of the universe and that the
world is filled with great nations
which depend upon industry and trade
for their power. They also have
seen that many of the necessities
and luxuries which they were wont to
get from other countries and which
have been produced at home have
been cut off by the war. t
Finally industrial education which
has been Increasing slowly but stead-
ily has had its effect. Years of
labor in the various industrial
schools appear now to be "bearing
considerable fruit.
The efforts of the Government in
the past to build up new industjrics
have disclosed the existence of many
difficulties. Indian capital has been
unenterprising and timid skilled lab-
or has been lacking and there has
been a want of practical information
regarding the commercial potential-
ities of India's raw products.. As a
result there are only two manufac-
turing industries of any magnitude.
They are jute and' cotton.
Otatslde these two businesses the
country has depended almost ' entire-
ly on foreign nations or other parts
of the British Empire for its manufac-
tured goods. Huge quantities of raw
materials of Almost every description
have been exported annually and
many of them have reappeared on the j
Indian markets in the manufactured
form. The same ships which have
brought in leather oils paper iron
and steel goods dyes and;various oth-
er products have reloaded with the
raw materials from which these very
things were made.
Xeed of Xarkets.
Industrially experts say that the
Indian consumer probably has bought
his goods as cheaply in most cases as
he could if they had been manufac-
tured at home but that India has
sacrificed the financial gain and oth-
er advantages accruing to the coun-:
try which has its own factories. For
one thing the producer of raw ma
terials having no alternative; market
has been forced to accept the prices
quoted him from abroad and many
times the figures have been -excessively
low. It is held that the estab-
lishment of a home market would
protect him against such losses. The
Indian working man too has suffer-
ed In that the higher wages which
might have been coming to him. have
been going Into the pockets of ioreign
artisans. Outside the actual mone
tary question great stress is
being laid on the national stability
derived by the -nation which bag Its
working classes profitably employed.
The commission which has been ap-
pointed to investigate this great prob-
lem is made up of ten experts headed
by Sir Thomas .Holland President of
the Institution of Mining Engineers of
the United Kingdom and widely
known as an industrial authority.
I The scope of inquiry is so comprehen
sive that it will take several months
to- complete the program laid out. - In
main tbe commission will prepare It-
self to suggest the most profitable
lines of action with the object of
drawing out capital now idle of
building up an artisan population of
carrying on the scientific and techni-
cal ' researches required to test the
known raw- materials and to design
and improve processes of manufac-
ture of distributing the Information
obtained from researches and from
the results of experience in other
countries and of developing the ma-
chinery for financing industrial undertakings-
and marketing products.
There are numerous industrial en-
terprises which many feel may be era-
barked upon profitably in the near
future. Among these Is the leather
industry. India exports great quan-
tities of hides. Heretofore most of
these have been sent to America and
Germany to be tanned and it is said
4W w c n rpnonn -whv enmo ntiail(:c uuung muse trying io years
this work should not be done at home.
The'other leading possibilities named
include the expressing of oil from
oil seeds the manufacture of paper
pulp the making of glass the produc-.
tlon of dyes from the plentiful raw
materials at'band and the extraction
of perfumes essential oils and. drugs.
There Is also room for great expan
sion In the iron and steel industries
which are still in their infancy a
well as in the smelting of aluminum
tin zinc and copper ores.
We Are
Always Ready
to serve vou with goo
printing. No matter wha
the nature of the job ma
be weafe ready to do
at a price that will b'
Satisfactory
FRENCH
FARMERS
ACCOMPLISH
MUCH
DESPITE THE IR
One-Third of French Sdl-
diers CamelrSm Farms
B. a iT -
Ut Agriculture. LiOeS On
Regardless
&
j .
PARIS Dec. C "The farmers of
France have done well for the coun -
try and their-efforts in the wheat
field as well as on the battlefield
must be recognized." said Ch. Brlllaad
de LauJardlere. head of the creat na-
uonai agriculturists' society of.
France to a correspondent of tbe As-
sociated Press. .
"Farm hands alone furnished more
than a third of our fighting strength
more than the men of any other
occupation and their exploits have
furnished pages of citations in the
Journal Oficiel. The peasants5 at
home particularly the women have
in their way done quite as well.' They
Jvc really been the 'staff of life' to
since they have provided the bread
but until lately they got only praise
while those at the front got decora-
tions "Every peasant woman or farmer's
wife or daughter' who has replaced a taught farm housekeeping with spe-
man called to arms shall have a sort cjal attention to the rational utiliza-
of a decoration too in the form of a tion of foodstuffs: when- we cet
diponia that will tell wlat she has
done for her country Just as a gen-
eral's citation makes know an act of
heroism on tho battlefield."
M. LauJardlere is qualified to speak
for the rural population; ho feels the
pulse of French agriculture every
morning when he opens the thousands
of letters that come to his office from
farms -from all over the country. He
presides over the Sj-ndicate Central
des Agric'ulteurs de France. This is
note quite tho snme thing as tho Na-
tional Grange in the United States
but in many ways it bears the same
relation to its members. Its mem-
bership comprises more than a thou
sand local syndicates besides 17000
individual members among the elite
of the -French agriculturists.
Thoroughly Organized.
"The French farmer was formerly
essentially individualist" said M.
(LauJardlere "hut he has learned the
value Of association and nearly every
farming community is organized.
There are 617S 'agricultural syndi-of farm labor.
cates in France with a membership "The desertion of the farm for tie"
before the war of 1250000 assembled town had long ago developed a crisis
in eighty-five different unions of syn- that will be aggrarated by the wastage
dicates. 0f war and the upheaval of conditions
I "A single one of these syndicates afterward; it is another of the profc-
in the department of Loir and Cher 'ems these syndicates are trying to
bought for its 1S.000 members to the Eolve.
equivalent of a million jwo hundred "Farmers' sons and simple farm
thousand dollars annually before the "hands in the long watches in the
war. trenches alongside of (he city boys
"Our syndicates are not merel the iavo rned many things they never'
sales and buylnc acenta of the inrii- .knt'w ab0lJt town life M. LauJardlere
ylduaI -farmer; they go farther; they
stand between the farmer and the
man from whom he buys or to whom
ke s?ls in any misunderstanding
saving him from law suits and e.-
penses;.and they act as his banker.
ln a w through the organization of
'mutual agricultural loan societies
hlch are separate from the syndi-
i cates. -
Anv land -owner enn hnrmw t
monev he nwdR in inif w0 f
from any one of our ninetv-eicht re
gional or 4000 load agricultural loan
.banks whose combined capital was
'350000000 francs In 1913; the state
has also placed at their disposition
'sums aggregating SC.oOo.000. They
discounted about 370000.000 francs .of
farmers' paper in that yean
"We not only help the farmer but
we helpt train his children to be farm-
ersdo all we can to attach them to
the soil. We teach them the scien-
tific part of grain and stock raising.
and of butter and cheese making we
'show them how to keep farm accounts
so that they may know whether they
are making money out of any given
crop; the fanners' daughters are
through with them- thoy have no
longer any excuse for haphazard or
wasteful use of provisions.
Effect of lVar Trices.
"War prices have helped tho farm-
er in ono direction and hampered him
in another. He gets the equivalent
of $1.97 a bushel for his wheat or
47 cents more than before the Vr.
He gets tho equivalent of $6 cents a
bushel for oats as against 74 cents
before tho war and this year the
oat ;rop was a record one. Wheat
"was deficient as compared even to last
year but tho farmer probably realizes
more in cash than for last year's crop.
On the other hand he pays a great
deal more for what he buys fer-
tilizers fuel; salt sugar flour.
"The French farmer will after the
war ho beset by difficulties that we
must lighten. Traction farm ma-
chinery bow4 almost prohibitive in.
Lbrice to the individual farmer must
be provided to make up for the lack
. h5nks "Curiosity aroused by tales
of the to;vn wHr draw them in even
.rea'r numbers than ever after the
war "nless counter attractions are"
nr0videtl- Thc syndicate proposes to-
maie 'neirlife on the farm more at-
tractive by higher comfort in their
habitation and by such distractions as
are transportable from the city to
the country.
upposea to tne alluring descrlp-
Sons of cit life they will set forth
the higher cost of living and the Il-
lusory character of . the supposed
town diversions.
"The new farm construction will
be made more pleasing than before
and for the long winter evenings-
profitable light occupations will be
provided such as the manufacture o
toys by men and lace -by women al-
ready tried in a number of Iocalitie
with promising success.
Crippled Selaler Preble
"The mutilated farmer-soldier will
also require attention. Improved im-
'Plemrats will bo required to keep him
at aome anu xney will oo provided.
He must have machines that can op-
erate easily and effectively as he - did
before his physical capacity was; di-
minished "In working on -that question .'we
are at the same time contributing to
the movement for rcpopulation Tho
farmer in France we calculate needs
a child for each 25 acres of land.
which is above the average. We organ-
ize competitions of large farmers'
families. Thero were 74 womenj in
tho competition of the Syndicate of
Loir et Cher In 1914 who had alto-
gether given 'birth to 73S children! an
average of Just about ten. and "the
children already had given birth to
470. .
"The organizers of these competi-
tions in which the recompenses are
purely honorary propose to go farth-
er and help the modest farm hand
acquire a little plot of ground of 'his
own-that will attach him to the soil
and encourage him' to raise a family.
What has 'become of the old fash-
ioned 'boy who used to squint down
the barrel of a rifle to seo if It was
loaded.
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The Daily Bulletin (Brownwood, Tex.), Vol. 16, No. 44, Ed. 1 Wednesday, December 6, 1916, newspaper, December 6, 1916; (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth346434/m1/3/: accessed April 26, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Howard Payne University Library.