value of jute piece goods and bags of foreign and colonial merchandise exported from the United Kingdom. The bulk of this trade consists of Indian jute piece goods. In the years 1910-1914 such goods, showing little variance as regards value, averaged yearly about $8,661,000, of which 57.1 per cent were consigned to the United States.

The extent to which the requirements of the American market have contributed to the growth of India's export trade in gunny cloth is summarized in the following table:

TABLE 19.-Exports of jute cloth from India to the United States, 1900-1921.

The amount of sacking cloth shipped to the United States is insignificant. In the period 1917-1921 the largest quantity was 5,250,000 yards, in 1917.

Exports to other countries.-After the United States India's leading markets are Argentina and countries of the British Empire. Shipments to these three markets constitute all but few per cent of India's total exports.

Prices of cloth sent to each country.-As a rule the price per yard of gunny cloth consigned from India to the United States is lower than that sent to the United Kingdom, which in turn pays less for its cloth than the countries of the British Empire. Prices of jute cloth shipped to the United States in 1900, 1905, and 1910 were practically the same, and in each year less than prices to the United Kingdom. The prices to the United States ranged from 2.74 cents to 2.78 cents per yard and to the United Kingdom from 3.16 cents to 3.64 cents per yard. The great demand of the United Kingdom during the war for jute cloth, from which to make sand bags, combined with transportation difficulties, limit the value of any comparisons made during the war. For the years 1920 and 1921 the prices were 7.59 cents and 6.50 cents for the United States as compared with 8.51 cents and 7.61 cents for the United Kingdom.

TABLE 20.-Average prices of burlap exported from British India.1

The difference in prices is due to the difference in quality. The burlap sent to the United States is coarser, lighter, and more loosely woven than that shipped to the United Kingdom.27

The trend of the Indian industry.-With the jute industry curtailing its production in 1921, and with a number of new mills under construction, it has been suggested that, with the return of normal trade conditions, India's capacity may be in excess of the demand for gunnies, leaving her with a surplus of yarn which will enable her to take a prominent part in a trade in which hitherto she has not figured.28 Undoubtedly an output of cloth continuing over a period in excess of requirements will naturally be followed by a curtailment of weaving operations and a determined effort to find markets for yarn not made into cloth. The American home market for jute yarn is large. In 1919 the American production of jute twine (other than binder), jute rope, and sales of jute yarn to carpet mills, totaled 149,684,000 pounds. Dundee's domestic and foreign trade is also large. Exports of yarn in the calendar years 1920 and 1921 from the United Kingdom amounted to 43,549,200 pounds and 27,876,900 pounds, respectively.

30

Prior to the trade depression, which set in during the last half of 1920, India's facilities for spinning jute yarn were not in advance of the demand for hessian cloth and sacking bags. The records for exports of cloth and bags, the large dividends returned by the mills, and the number of new mills started, testify that trade was brisk and that there was little slack between production and consumption from the close of the war up to late 1920.

With the falling off in the demand for her standard lines, the easiest method for India to dispose of her surplus material would be to ship it in the form of yarn. Curtailed production of gunnies, however, was not followed by an increase in shipments of yarn. The quantity of yarn exported in April-November, 1921, was 1,567,302 pounds as against 7,415,477 and 1,667,952 pounds for the same period in 1920 and 1919. While the quantity exported in the fiscal year 1921 was the largest on record 10,178,785 pounds-it gives little promise of yarn becoming one of India's standard lines.31

Several explanations may be offered for the small volume of yarn exported in a time when the Indian industry was facing the greatest depression in its history. The readiest explanation is that running the mills on part time since January, 1921, has brought the production of gunnies 32 into line with consumption, and has cut down the amount of yarn available for export.

Whether, upon the restoration of normal trade conditions and upon the resumption of full time by the mills, exports of yarn will advance, is contingent upon the relation of spindleage to the consumption of hessian cloth and sacking bags. A margin between spindleage and the amount of cloth necessary to fill the world's normal increased

27 For a discussion in detail of the types of burlap imported into the United States from India see p. 51. 25 Ways and Means tariff hearings, 1921, pp. 2417-2419.

19 The United Kingdom's trade in jute is shown on p. 80.

30 Shipments of English jute yarn to the United States in 1919 amounted to 97,200 pounds; in 1920 to 1,782,900 pounds, and in 1921, to 9,308,300 pounds. Total domestic imports of single and plied jute yarns for consumption in the United States in 1919 and 1920 were 62,029 and 2,593,100 pounds, respectively.

31 Exports of yarn during April-June, 1921, were 236,446 pounds as compared with 3,577,806 pounds, and 711,240 pounds, respectively, for the same periods in 1919 and 1920.

32 According to the "Dundee Prices Current" of Feb. 15, 1922, Calcutta's exports of hessian cloth for the months January-November, 1921, totaled 1,040,928,842 yards as compared with 1,337,809,614 yards for the corresponding period in 1920.

CHART D.-Looms in Indian Jute Industry, 1891-1920.

With

requirements of hessian cloth and sacking bags will find India greatly expanding her record shipments of yarn in the fiscal year 1921. 1921. the demand for gunnies running ahead of production year by year, as in the prewar period, India will have no surplus yarn for export. The marked and almost continuous increase in spindleage in the prewar years, and India's concentration on hessian and sacking in the same time, makes spindleage a ready means of estimating the yearly increase in capacity required to enable Calcutta to keep abreast of the world's normal increasing consumption of gunnies. The constant relation of 20 to 21 spindles to a loom makes it possible to translate spindleage into loomage and to determine whether the advance in loomage since the close of the war has been below or in excess of the annual increases in the years 1891–1915.

In only one of the years in the period 1891-192034 did the number of Indian spindles fail to show a gain over the total for the previous year. In 20 of the 25 years, 1891-1915, the annual increase ranged between 4.03 and 8.61 per cent.

On the basis of the annual growth in the quarter of the century 1891-1915, an advance of 6 per cent in capacity for each of the years 1920 and 1921 would be normal. This is allowing that the successive increases in spindleage during 1916-1919 of 2.12, 1.46, 1.18, and 0.685 per cent were commensurate with the increased requirements in the same time. On the basis of a 6 per cent 35 increase in capacity for the fiscal years 1920 and 1921, the new looms installed during 1920 would have numbered 2,400 and in 1921 2,500, bringing the total loomage at the end of March, 1921, to about 45,000 looms. The number in existence in early 1920, according to official statistics, was 41,045. That the looms actually added have been less is due in part to the difficulty in securing new machinery and the abnormal trade conditions in late 1920, which brought the work on the new mills and the extensions planned by the old mills to a standstill.

There is little reason for believing that if world trade should become normal in 1921 the demand for cloth and bags from India's customary markets, added to those of the new markets she may win, will reach the point that it will call for the immediate use of 8,000 looms or 20 per cent increase in capacity contemplated in early 1920. More likely the serious depression in the Indian industry in 1921 has put off for years the increases in loomage planned by the older mills and will prove disastrous to a number of newly launched companies,36 with the result that when trade revives from the slump, which began in 1920, the mills under course of construction will be more in line with the world's normal and advancing consumption of hessian cloth and sacking bags.

DUNDEE.

The rise and decline of the Dundee jute industry.-Dundee, which in 1836 initiated the machine manufacture of jute and which enjoyed a

33 The number of spindles to a loom in 1891 was 20.02; in 1895, 20.02; in 1900, 20.91; in 1905, 20.46; in 1910, 20.50; and in 1914, 20.64.

34 The latest official figures available showing the spindleage employed in spinning jute yarn are those for the year 1919–20.

a5 The average annual increase in the years 1891-1918 was 6.23 per cent.

36 Writing of the outlook of the Dundee textile machinery industry for 1921, the American consul at Dundee, in his annual report for 1920, transmitted Oct. 29, 1921, states: "The outlook for the ensuing year (1921) is not highly encouraging, as a large number of orders for new mills in India have already been canceled or greatly curtailed owing to the unsatisfactory conditions in the jute trade, while delivery of orders has been in many cases indefinitely postponed."

monopoly of the world's production of jute goods in the 20 years following, is to-day second only to India as a manufacturer of jute cloth and bags. It was not until 1856 that the first jute machinery was sent to India, and not until 1861 that the first jute mill was started in continental Europe.

During the half century following the establishment of the industry, the Dundee industry progressed by leaps and bounds, reaching its zenith in the decade 1880-1890. During the following decade, however, it declined to a level which it maintained with difficulty during the following 20 years.

Shipments of jute cloths represent the bulk of Dundee's exports, which are given in English trade statistics under the classification of "jute piece goods" without reference to types of cloths shipped, or whether bleached, dyed, stained, or in any manner processed.

The following table giving the United Kingdom's exports of jute piece goods of domestic manufacture shows the rise, decline, and stationary position of the Scottish industry:

TABLE 21.-Exports of jute piece goods of English manufacture, 1861–1921.

In the four years 1910-1913 exports ranged between 149,000,000 and 176,000,000 yards. During the first four years of the war shipments from Dundee fluctuated between 109,000,000 and 134,000,000 yards. Owing to an embargo placed on jute products in 1918, the total fell to 31,594,000 yards. For the years 1919 and 1920 the totals were 111,321,000 linear yards and 149,345,600 square yards, respectively.

The leading reasons for the decline of the Dundee jute industry from the peak reached in 1891, when exports of jute piece goods amounted to 283,618,000 yards, are:

1. The rise of Calcutta as a jute manufacturing center. Not only has the Indian industry wrested from Dundee the dominant position in many neutral and colonial markets, but it has also made serious inroads upon Dundee's home market.

The value of the United Kingdom's imports of jute manufactures, other than cordage, cables, ropes, and twine, advanced from $14,065,000 in 1913 to $30,450,000 in 1919 and to $36,373,000 in 1920. In 1905 India supplied $9,405,000 of a total of $10,131,000 representing imports of jute manufactures other than cordage; in 1910, $11,800,000 of a total set at $15,191,000; and in 1915, about $22,418,000 of the aggregate, $23,395,000. India's competition has forced Dundee to concentrate more and more in the production of specialties, such as fine yarns, figured fabrics, and wide hessians used as a backing for linoleum.