Chapter 4 The Age of Industrialisation
Question and AnswerQuestion 1: What is proto-industrialization? What are its main features?
Answer:
• Proto-industrialization is the early phase of industrialization in which large scale production was carried out for international market not at factories but in decentralized units.
• It was controlled by merchants and the goods were produced by a vast number of producers working within their family farms.
Question 2: “In the 17th and the 18th centuries, the merchants from the towns in Europe began moving to the countryside.” Give reasons./Explain the major problems faced by the new European merchants in setting up their industries in towns before the industrial revolution./Throw light on production during the proto-industrialization phase in Europe in the 17th and 18th centuries.
Answer:
• The expansion of world trade and the acquisition of colonies in different parts of the world increased the demand for goods.
• But merchants could not expand production because the urban crafts and trade guilds were powerful in towns.
• The urban crafts and trade guilds were associations of producers that trained craftspeople, maintained control over production, regulated competition and prices and restricted the entry of new people into the trade.
• Rulers granted different guilds the monopoly right to produce and trade in specific products.
• So the merchants from the towns in Europe, began moving to the countryside supplying money to peasants and artisans, persuading them to produce for an international market.
Question 3: Why did the poor peasants and artisans agree to accept advances made by the merchants to produce goods for them in Europe during the 17th and 18th centuries? Explain. / How were the new merchant groups in Europe able to spread their business in the countryside? Explain.
Answer:
• In the countryside, open fields were disappearing and commons were enclosed.
• Cottagers and poor peasants who had earlier depended on common lands for their survival for fire wood, berries, hay etc., had to now look for alternative sources of income.
• Many had tiny plots of land which could not provide work for all members of the household.
• So, when merchants came around and offered advances to produce goods for them, peasant households eagerly agreed. As they could stay in the country side, till their lands and also work for the merchants and earn additional income.
Question 4: Why did the production of cotton industry boom in the late 18th century? / How had a series of inventions in the 19th century increase the efficacy of each step of production in the cotton textile industry? Explain.
Answer:
• A series of inventions in the 18th century increased the efficacy of each step of production process - carding, twisting, spinning and rolling.
• It enhanced the output per worker, enabling each worker to produce more.
• It made possible the production of stronger thread and yarn.
• Richard Arkwright created the cotton mill. Now the costly machines could be purchased, set up and maintained in the mill.
• Within the mill all the production processes were brought together under one roof and management, which allowed careful supervision over the production process, a watch over quality and the regulation of labour.
Question 5: How rapid was the process of industrialization in Britain? / Explain the major features of the industrialization process of Europe in the 19th century.
Answer: Cotton and metals were the most dynamic industries in Britain.
• Cotton was the leading sector in the first phase of industrialization upto the 1840s. Later the iron and steel industry became prominent as the demand for iron and steel increased rapidly due to the expansion of railways.
• Only 20% of the workforce was employed in the technologically advanced sectors, the rest 80% worked in the traditional industries.
• The traditional industries did not remain entirely stagnant either. Small innovations led to the growth of non-mechanised sectors such as food processing, pottery, furniture making etc.
• Technological changes occurred slowly. New technology was expensive. The machines often broke down and repair was costly. They were not as effective as their inventors and manufacturers claimed.
Question 6: Why were the merchants and industrialists reluctant to use the new technology? Explain with the help of an example. / Why didn’t industrialists want to get rid of hand labour once machines were introduced?
Answer:
• New technology was expensive. So merchants and industrialists were cautious about using it.
• The machines often broke down and repair was costly.
• They were not as effective as their inventors and manufacturers claimed.
• Example: James Watt improved the steam engine produced by Newcomen and patented it. His industrialist friend Mathew Boulton manufactured the new engine.
• But for years he could find no buyers.
• At the beginning of the 19th century there were only 321 steam engines used in cotton industries, wool industries, mines etc.
Question 7: Why did the industrialists of Europe prefer hand labour over machines during the 19th century? Explain. / Why was there a demand for human labour in the Victorian Britain. Give reasons.
Answer:
• New technology was expensive.
• The machines often broke down and repairs were costly.
• They were not as effective as their inventors and manufacturers claimed.
• Poor peasants and vagrants moved to cities in large numbers in search of jobs. There is plenty of labour available at low wages.
• In many industries the demand for labour was seasonal. For example, gas works, breweries, book binding etc.
• A range of products with intricate design and specific shapes could be produced only with hand labour. For example hammers and axes.
• In Victorian Britain, the upper class preferred things produced by hand as they were better finished, individually produced and carefully designed. Handmade products symbolized refinement and class.
Question 8: ‘The abundance of labour in the marked affected the lives of workers.’ Explain. / ‘The process of industrialization brought with it miseries for the newly emerged class of industrial workers.’ Explain. / Explain the miserable condition of workers in Britain during the 19th century.
Answer:
• Job seekers were more whereas jobs were less.
• Job seekers had to wait weeks, spending nights under bridges or in night shelters.
• Though some could get jobs through their social connections, the wages were low.
• There was no job security. After the busy season, the workers were asked to leave (seasonal industries).
• Some returned to the countryside after the winter, but most looked for odd jobs.
• Prices of goods rose sharply during the Napoleonic wars.
• Though wages increased somewhat in the early 19th century, the real value of wages fell significantly, since the same wages could now buy fewer things.
Question 9: Why did the women workers in Britain attack the Spinning Jenny?
Answer:
• The fear of unemployment made workers hostile to the introduction of new technology.
• So, when the Spinning Jenny was introduced in the woolen industry, women who survived on hand spinning attacked the new machine.
Question 10: Mention the major features of Indian textiles before the age of machine industries.
Answer:
• Before the age of machine industries, silk and cotton goods from India dominated the international markets, in textiles.
• Armenian and Persian merchants took the goods from Punjab and Afghanistan, eastern Persia and central Asia by land route (through mountain passes and across deserts).
• A vibrant sea trade also operated through the ports of Surat, Masulipatnam and Hooghly.
• A variety of Indian merchants and bankers were involved in the export trade, financing production, carrying goods and supplying exporters.
Question 11: Why did the pre-colonial ports of Surat and Hooghly decline by the end of the 18th century?
Answer:
• The European companies gradually gained power by securing a variety of concessions from local courts and by monopoly rights to trade.
• This resulted in the decline of the pre-colonial ports of Surat and Hoghly.
• Exports from these ports fell, the credit began drying up and the local bankers went bankrupt.
• Trade now was carried out through the ports of Bombay and Calcutta which were controlled by the European companies and was carried in European ships.
Question 12: How did the East India Company procure regular supplies of cotton and silk textiles from Indian weavers? / What steps were taken by the East Indian Company to control the market of cotton and silk goods?
Answer:
• Once the East India Company established political power, it asserted a monopoly right to trade.
• It developed a system of management and control that would eliminate competition, control costs and ensure regular supplies of cotton and silk.
• The company, first eliminated the existing traders and brokers connected with the cloth trade.
• It appointed a paid servant called the Gomastha to supervise weavers, collect supplies and examine the quality of cloth.
• It prevented company weavers from dealing with other buyers through the system of advances.
• Once an order was placed, the weavers were given loans to purchase the raw material for their production. The weavers who took loans had to hand over the cloth to the gomasthas. They could not take it to any other trader.
Question 13: What were the reasons for the clashes between the weavers and the gomasthas? / Why did the weavers clash with the gomasthas?
Answer:
• The gomasthas, the paid servants of the Company, were outsiders with no long term social link with the village.
• They acted arrogantly, marched into villages with sepoys and peons and punished the weavers for delays in supply.
• The weavers lost the space to bargain.
• The price they received from the Company was very low.
• In many places the weavers left their villages and set up their looms in other villages. Some weavers, along with the village traders, revolted against the Company.
Question 14: Explain the reasons for the decline of Indian textile industry by the end of the 19th century. / “By the beginning of the 19th century, there was a long decline of textile exports from India.” Explain by giving reasons.
Answer:
• As cotton industries developed in England, industrial groups, who were worried about the competition from imports , pressurized the government to impose import duties on cotton textiles, so that they could sell Manchester goods in Britain.
• They persuaded the East India Company to sell British textiles in India.
• So cotton weavers in India faced two problems – their export market collapsed and the local market shrank.
• Due to the Civil War in America, the raw cotton supplies from America to Britain was cut off, so raw cotton was exported from India to Britain.
• As a result of this, there was a scarcity of good quality raw cotton (for the Indian weavers) and even the prices of the available stock of raw cotton shot up.
• By the end of the 19th century, factories in India began production, flooding the market with machine made goods.
Question 15: Who were the early entrepreneurs or business groups in India during the 19th century? How did they acquire the capital to start the business? What problems did they confront?
Answer:
• The early entrepreneurs, in India, were the Indian traders who were involved in the trading activity between India China, Burma, Middle East, East Africa, England etc. by providing finance, procuring supplies and shipping consignment. Some traders operated within India.
• Having earned through trade, some of them established their own industries. For example, Dwarakanath Tagore - Bengal, Dinshaw Petit and J.N. Tata - Bombay, Seth Hukumchand, G.D. Birla etc.
• The problems which they confronted were as follows:
→ The Indian merchants were barred from trading with Europe in manufactured goods.
→ They had to export mostly raw materials and food grains required by the British.
→ They were also gradually edged out of the shipping business.
→ The European merchant-industrialists had their own Chambers of Commerce which Indian businessmen were not allowed to join.
Question 16: Where did the workers come from (to work in the Indian industries)?
Answer:
• Peasants and artisans who found no work in the villages, started working in the industries.
• For example, to work in Bombay cotton industries workers came from the nearby district of Ratnagiri.
• Over time, as news of employment spread, workers travelled greater distances to work in the factories. For example, from the United Provinces, workers went to work in the mills set up in Bombay and Calcutta.
Question 17: Who was a jobber? What were his functions?
Answer:
• The jobber was an old and trusted worker who was employed by the industrialists to get new recruits.
• He got people from his village, ensured them jobs, helped them settle in the city and provided them money in times of crisis.
• As his authority and power increased he began demanding money and gifts for his favour and controlling the lives of the workers.
Question 18: “By the first decade of the 20th century a series of changes affected the pattern of industrialization in India.” Explain.
Answer:
• As the Swadeshi Movement (started in 1905) gathered momentum, nationalists mobilized people to boycott foreign cloth and wear khadi.
• Industrial groups organized themselves to protect their collective interests, pressurizing the government to increase tariff protection and grant other concessions.
• From 1906 the export of Indian yarn to China declined, since produce from Chinese and Japanese mills flooded the Chinese market.
Question 19: Explain the impact of the First World War on the Indian industries. / Describe the peculiarities of Indian industrial growth during the First World War. / How did the First World War prove to be a boon to the Indian industries? Explain.
Answer:
• Manchester imports into India declined, as British mills were busy with war production to meet the needs of the war.
• Now, Indian mills had a vast home market to supply.
• As the war prolonged, Indian factories were called upon to supply war needs such as jute bags, leather boots, tents etc.
• New factories were set up and many new workers were employed to meet the demand.
• Industrial production boomed during the war years.
Question 20: Why couldn’t Britain recapture her hold on the Indian market after the First World War? Explain. / Explain the impact of the First World War on Britain’s economy.
Answer:
• During the First World War period, Manchester imports to India declined, as the British mills were busy in war production to meet the needs of the army.
• The domestic demand (in India) was met by the Indian industries.
• After the war, Manchester could never recapture its old position in the Indian market place because:
→ Britain could not modernize and compete with the United States, Germany and Japan.
→ Collapse of cotton production and decline in exports of cotton cloth.
→ Within the colonies, local industrialists gradually consolidated their position, substituting foreign manufacturers and capturing the home market.
Question 21: “In the 20th century, the handloom cloth production expanded steadily, i.e, almost trebling between 1900 and 1940.” Give reasons. / What led to the expansion of handloom craft production between 1900 and 1940? / Give reasons as to why handloom weavers in India survived the onslaught of the machine made textiles of Manchester.
Answer:
• Many weavers started adopting the new technology without excessively pushing up costs.
• By the second decade of the 20th century weavers started using looms with fly shuttle which increased productivity per worker, speeded up production and reduced labour demand.
• Weavers who produced coarse cloth for the poor were adversely affected due to the fluctuations in the demand.
• Specialised weavers who wove finer varieties managed to survive as the machine made products failed to attract the rich people. For example, the rich bought Banarasi or Baluchari saris with woven borders, lungis and handkerchiefs of Madras too were famous.
Question 22: Explain the methods used by producers to expand their market in the 19th century? / How did the British manufacturers attempt to take over the Indian market with the help of advertisements? Explain with the help of examples. / “Consumers are created through advertisements.” Support the statement with the help of examples. / When Manchester industrialists began selling cloth in India, they put labels with pictures on the cloth bundles. Why did they do so? Explain.
Answer:
→ Advertisements:
• The British manufacturers created advertisements and published them in newspapers, magazines, street walls etc. to make the products appear desirable and necessary.
• Advertisements have helped in expanding the markets for products and in shaping a new consumer culture.
→ Labelling:
• When Manchester industrialists began selling cloth in India, they put labels on the cloth bundles.
• The labels contained information regarding the place of manufacture, the name of the company and beautifully illustrated images, which not only made the name of the company familiar to the buyer, but also assured the buyer of the quality of the product.
→ Calendars:
• By the late 19th century, manufacturers were printing calendars to popularize the product.
• Calendars could be used even by people who could not read.
• Calendars which contained the images of gods and important personages were hung in homes, tea shops etc.
• The images of Indian gods and goddesses were used to imply that divine approval has been given to sell the goods.
• The images of great persons were used to imply that if you respect the person, then respect the product.
• The people who used to see the advertisements, day after day, through the year, and ultimately be tempted to buy the product.
Question 23: “When Indian manufacturers advertised, the nationalist message was clear and loud.” What was the message?
Answer:
• Advertisements make products appear desirable and necessary.
• They try to shape the minds of people and create new needs.
• When Indian manufacturers advertised, their message was thus: “If you care for the nation then buy products that Indians produce.”
• Advertisements became a vehicle of the nationalist message of swadeshi.
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