ABSTRACT
The economic impact of the British in that field can be suitably illustrated by a brief study of the development of the jute, iron and steel, cotton textile and coalmining industries. ‘The great trade and principle employment of jute is for the manufacture of gunny chuts or chuttees i.e. lengths suitable for making bags. This industry forms the grand domestic manufacture of all the populous eastern districts of Lower Bengal.’ In the industries which we have so far considered—railways, indigo, tea and jute—development was the result of British enterprise and technical skill, operating with capital mainly raised either in the United Kingdom or from British Agency houses in India. The development of the coal-mining industry, which followed a different pattern from the industries so far studied, is perhaps the best measure of the quickening industrial tempo. Enough has been said to show that the establishment of a coal-mining industry in India was almost entirely due to British enterprise.
