,
XVU
INTRODUCTION.
There are
in fact hardly any other productive occupations. of the village societies are provided for by the existence usually of at least one family in each society of the castes of blacksmiths, carpenters, and leather-dressers. These build and repair their carts and ploughs and make them shoes. Cloth and brass vessels, as has been seen, come from the bazars^ and their price is settled by ordinary trade competition. This is not the case with the labour of the village artizans, which, like rent, is determined by custom, and is even now almost everywhere remunerated by a fixed share of the village produce. They are really integral parts of that complete political system which has for its basis the grain heap on the threshing-floor at the end of the harvest, and take their place more correctly with the rdja, the village proprietors, and the tillers of the soil than with the trading classes. Before annexation large numbers of the lower castes were employed in weaving cotton and distilling spirits from sugar or mahua flower, and their looms and stills paid an annual duty to the raja within whose territories they were worked. Both occupations are still in existence, but the first has received a fatal blow from the competition of Manchester, and the second has been formulated by the excise system, which converts the independent distiller into a paid Government servant. The salt industry has been completely annihilated. The finer products of the Lucknow workmen prove to what a degree of artistic excellence the inhabitants of the province might attain if the development of their energies were not hampered by want of capital, want of markets, and the old restrictions which make it so difficult for any one to join or succeed in any occupation which was not that of his father before him. The silver engraved work, the gold and silver lace, and the embroideries in gold, silver, or silk thread on velvet and cashmir would compete both for beauty and cheapness with similar manufactures in any part of the world ; but the number of workmen engaged and the gross annual value of the trades are too small to elevate
The wants
them to even a provincial importance. The external trade of the province takes two main linesone by the river route of the Gogra to Lower Bengal, the other through Lucknow and Cawnpore and there are besides inconsi;
spices, and derable transactions in cotton and salt, hill ponies, last eight the for returns Government gums with Naipal. The more than three of excess an years (1867 — 1874 inclusive) show for being £13,966,000 totals the millions in imports over exports, point Txe highest second. the first. aaainst £10,865,000 for the 1869, when the former exports and imports was reached
m
both in
3
