LETTER OF SUBMITTAL.

DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE,

BUREAU OF FOREIGN AND DOMESTIC COMMERCE,

Washington, August 1, 1917. SIR: There is submitted herewith a report on the cotton-goods trade of the Bombay Presidency of British India, which has been prepared by Commercial Agent Ralph M. Odell after an investigation extending over a period of six months. The imports of cotton manufactures into the Presidency amounted in value to $82,760,378 in the year ended March 31, 1914, before the outbreak of the European war. Among the maritime Provinces of India the trade is exceeded by only that of the Bengal Presidency, which was valued at $97,307,293 in the same year.

The report is presented in two sections, the first relating to the trade of the southern part of the Presidency, which enters through the port of Bombay, and the second to the Province of Sind, whose chief port, Karachi, serves as a port of entry for a large part of northern and northwestern India and for Baluchistan and Afghanistan.

Although American cotton goods are much more in evidence in Bombay than in Madras, Bengal, or Burma, our share of this large trade is less than 1 per cent, and the imports from the United States are confined almost entirely to one line of grey drills that have been popular in northern and western India for many years. Our failure to secure a larger proportion of the trade is due to the same difficulties that obtain in other parts of India, which have been set forth in previous reports. These difficulties, stated briefly, are: The inability or unwillingness of American cotton manufacturers to produce the kinds of goods that are most widely consumed in the market and lack of proper selling facilities for reaching the trade. Prior to the war it is doubtful if it would have been possible for American manufacturers to compete in many of the lines of cotton goods imported into the Bombay Presidency, but changed conditions in the cost of production in countries that heretofore have been the chief sources of supply appear to have enlarged the opportunities for the development of our trade. Moreover, there are imported into the Presidency certain goods that closely approximate the products of American mills, and we could doubtless obtain a substantial share of the trade in these lines if aggressive and persistent efforts were made to exploit the

market and provide the facilities that are offered by manufacturers and exporters of other countries. A careful analysis of the principal cloths which enter into the trade has been made, samples have been collected, and suggestions have been offered for entering the field.

This is the fourth report by Mr. Odell on the cotton-goods trade of British India. Preceding reports were devoted to the trade of Madras, Bengal, and Burma. Another report, summarizing the cotton-goods trade of the whole of British India, with a discussion of the cotton-manufacturing industry of the Empire, is being prepared and will be issued soon.

Respectfully,

To Hon. WILLIAM C. REDFIELD,

Secretary of Commerce.

B. S. CUTLER, Acting Chief of Bureau.

COTTON GOODS IN BRITISH INDIA.

PART IV. BOMBAY PRESIDENCY.

TRADE THROUGH BOMBAY.

I. INTRODUCTION.

The Bombay Presidency consists of a broad strip of territory along the northwest, west, and southwest coasts of India and extends from Baluchistan in the north to the Madras Presidency and the Native State of Mysore in the south. It has an area of 186,923 square miles and a population (census of 1911) of 27,084,317. It ranks third in area and fourth in population among the political divisions of India, being exceeded in the former by the Madras Presidency and Burma and in the latter by the Bengal and Madras Presidencies and the Province of Bihar and Orissa. Various Native States and agencies included in the Presidency and under its administrative control embrace an area of 63,864 square miles, with a population of 7,411,675. The settlement of Aden, Arabia, with its adjacent island of Perim, which is British territory under the administration of Bombay, has an area of 80 square miles and a population of 46,165. The area of that part of the Presidency in India which is British territory (not including Native States) is 122,979 square miles and the population in 1911 was 19,626,477. This is divided for administrative purposes into several districts, the most important of which are the Province of Sind with an area of 46,986 square miles and a population of 3,513,435; Ahmedabad, Broach, and Surat in the north; Bombay City and Ísland, Ahmednagar, Khandesh, and Poona in the central district; and Belgaum, Bijapur, Dharwar, and Ratnagiri in the south. The principal Native States that are politically subsidiary to the Bombay Government are Cutch and Kathiawar in the north, Kolhapur and the Deccan group in the south and east, and Khairpur, adjoining the Province of Sind, in the northwest. The Native State of Baroda is within the territory of Bombay, but it has direct political relations with the Government of India.

As a large proportion of the trade of Sind is carried on direct with foreign countries through the port of Karachi, it is usually treated separately in the official statistics of imports and exports. The first section of this report is therefore intended to cover the trade of the Bombay Presidency proper, and does not include the Province of Sind nor the settlement of Aden, Arabia.

AGRICULTURE AND OTHER INDUSTRIES.

Considerably more than half of the population of the Presidency is engaged in agriculture. The principal crops are jawar and bajra, or Indian millet, which after rice constitutes the principal article of food among the natives, and wheat, rice, oilseeds, and cotton.

The area under cotton in the season of 1914-15 was 6,953,000 acres, and the production as estimated by the Department of Commercial Intelligence of the Government of India was 1,544,000 bales of 400 pounds each. In 1915-16 approximately 30 per cent of the total area under cotton in India was in the Bombay Presidency, and the cultivation, picking, ginning, pressing, manufacture, and export of the staple furnish one of the most important means of livelihood among the people. The city of Bombay is the center of the cotton trade, as Calcutta is the center of the jute trade of India. The staple is grown more or less throughout the Presidency, but the most important districts for its cultivation are Kathiawar, Ahmedabad, Broach, Surat, and Khandesh.in the northern and central districts, and Belgaum, Bijapur, and Dharwar in the south and east. Some of the finest Indian cotton is produced in Broach and Surat, and in December, 1916, the best quality of this cotton was selling in Bombay at 412 rupees per candy of 784 pounds; this is equivalent to 17.03 cents per pound. It has proven satisfactory for spinning up to 30s and even 40s yarn.

A considerable part of the cotton grown in the Presidency is consumed by the local mills, but there is also a large export. Shipments to foreign countries consist of cotton grown in the Bombay Presidency and other parts of India. In the year ended March 31, 1915, the total quantity exported was 7,763,701 hundredweight (hundredweight=112 pounds), valued at 249,669,649 rupees ($81,001,157). Shipments to Japan amounted to 4,052,492 hundredweight, or more than 50 per cent of the total. Exports in the same year to Italy were 842,563 hundredweight; to Germany (before the outbreak of the war), 720,190 hundredweight; to Belgium, 498,334 hundredweight; to France, 442,407 hundredweight; to the United Kingdom, 373,455 hundredweight; to Austria-Hungary, 367,563 hundredweight.

MANUFACTURE OF COTTON.

The principal industries of the Presidency are those connected with cotton, including ginning, pressing, spinning, weaving, and dyeing factories. In 1915 there were in operation 428 ginning, cleaning, and pressing mills, and 184 spinning and weaving mills. The latter contained 4,803,932 spindles and 85,388 looms, and the average number of operatives employed daily was 183,701. In the whole of India there were 6,848,744 spindles and 108,009 looms. In 1905 there were 140 mills with 3,504,502 spindles and 32,950 looms in the Presidency. In the year ended March 31, 1916, the production of the mills amounted to 509,770,810 pounds of yarn (chiefly 6s, 7s, 10s, 11s, 12s, 14s, 16s, 18s, 20s, 218, 22s, 24s, and 30s), and 287,487,309 pounds (equivalent to more than 1,250,000,000 yards) of cloth, principally grey chadars, dhooties, shirtings, T cloth, and domestics and colored goods. These figures are sufficient to indicate the importance of the textile industry in Bombay.