6.00 6.00 6.20 6.64
Boiler man 6.00 6.00 6.90 7.31
Carpenter 10.00 10.00 11.10 11.67
Blacksmith 11.50 13.50 13.80 15.84
Fitter 10.00 11.00 13.98

These wages, however, correspond with those received by persons in
other lines of employment. The postmen employed by the government,
or letter carriers as we call them, receive a maximum of only
12.41 rupees a month, which is about $3.50, and a minimum of
9.25, which is equivalent to $3.08 in our money. Able-bodied
and skilled mechanics--masons, carpenters and blacksmiths--get
no more than $2.50 to $3.50 a month, and bookkeepers, clerks
and others having indoor occupations, from $4.10 to $5.50 per
month. Taking all of the wage-earners together in India, their
compensation per month is just about as much as the same class
receive per day in the United States.

The encouragement of manufacturing is one of the methods the
government has adopted to prevent or mitigate famines, and its
policy is gradually becoming felt by the increase of mechanical
industries and the employment of the coolie class in lines other
than agriculture. At the same time, the problem is complicated
by the fact that the greater part of the mechanical products of
India have always been produced in the households. Each village
has its own weavers, carpenters, brass workers, blacksmiths and
potters, who are not able to compete with machine-made goods.
Many of these local craftsmen have attained a high standard of
artistic skill in making up silk, wool, linen, cotton, carpets,
brass, iron, silver, wood, ivory and other materials. But their
arts must necessarily decay or depreciate if the local markets are
flooded with cheap products from factories, and there a question
of serious consequence has arisen.

There is very active rivalry in the tea trade of late years.
China formerly supplied the world. Thirty years ago very little
was exported from any other country. Then Japan came in as an
energetic competitor and sent its tea around everywhere, but
the consumption increased as rapidly as the cultivation, so that
China kept her share of the trade. About fifteen years ago India
came into the market; and then Ceylon. The Ceylon export trade
has been managed very skillfully. There has been an enormous
increase in the acreage planted, and 92 per cent of the product
has been sent to the United K