Once harvested, the jute is packed in bales, each weighing 400lb and costing approximately £14 a ton in 1903. (Anthology, 6.10, p.426). Buyers from the Dundee factories would buy the jute in pounds sterling, the currency used across the trading world as a result of British domination of trading routes with her navy, the Empire and the amount of foreign investment in countries outside the empire. After purchase of the raw material buyers would then have it shipped from the ports of Riga and Calcutta, the 9,000 miles to Dundee either around the Cape of Good Hope or through the Suez Canal. In 1885, 58 jute ships from Calcutta arrived at the Dundee docks. (Unit 22, p.74) Around 1903 approx 1,250,000 bales were imported to Dundee every year. (Anthology, 6.10, p.426) On arrival in Dundee the bales were unloaded from the ships and transported by horse and cart to the buyers factory.
The textile industry is synonymous with Dundee, records show that in 1864 there were 61 factories in Dundee manufacturing, sacks for carrying cotton from the Southern states of America, grain from the American great plains and Argentina, coffee from the East indies and Brazil, wool from Australia, sugar from the Caribbean and nitrates from Chile, a truly global market. (Unit 22, p.53) These factories employed a total of 36,020 people almost half of Dundee’s workforce. The factories ranged in size from the massive Baxter Brothers and Co Dens work which employed 4,000 hands and had 19,744 spindles and 1,200 power looms, to Peter Balfour’s Creditors, Rose work which had 19 power looms and employed only 30 hands. (Anthology, 6.8, pp.422-3) The jute industry was a high risk industry. The fact that it was grown often by uneducated peasants led to a great deal of speculation on the size of the annual harvests leading to speculation and price fluctuations. The huge distances involved in the transportation to Dundee, the competition from European manufacturers, when countries such as Germany, France, Austria-Hungary and Italy finally industrialised, as well as the competition from manufacturers on the Hughli River in Calcutta, set up using Dundee machines and know-how, all meant that manufacturing costs had to be kept to a bare minimum. In Dundee this meant employing the cheapest labour possible, women. This brought many problems to Dundee, low wages, high unemployment among the male population, and the worst infant mortality rate of any of the fifteen principle towns in Scotland 174 per 1000 in 1904. (Anthology, 6.11, p.428) Indeed the working conditions within the Dundee factories must have been very poor as A Calcutta Dundonian wrote “I may state that the women and children are better cared for under our Factory Act than yours (Dundee). Our women and children work fewer hours per week, are better and more sanitarily housed, can save a greater percentage of their wages, and enjoy more holidays than the Dundee mill workers do.” (Anthology, 6.7, p.419)
Despite the risks involved some factories were very successful. The Cox Brothers Camperdown Works for example. In 1864 it had 10,018 spindles, 560 power looms and employed 3,200 hands. (Anthology, 6.8, pp.422-3) By 1903 they had grown to 20,00 spindles, 1000 power looms, occupying 28 acres and employing 5,000 hands and were the largest manufacturers in the world. Harry Walker and Sons Ltd jute spinners and manufacturers, company records show that from 1892-1914 the company made a profit every year except for 1909 when a small loss was made. (Unit 22, Fig 22.5) Bruce Lenman and Kathleen Donaldson have suggested “Big profits were made in Dundee jute, but these were invested overseas rather than in the local economy. From 1870s on investment trusts launched by Dundee businessmen channelled enormous sums of money into foreign investments and particularly into American railway, land and cattle companies. Dundee’s jute barons preferred to invest in American stocks rather than developing new industries in Dundee. (Unit 22, p.72)
Throughout the nineteenth century Britain had operated a policy of free trade. Industrialisation had given Britain a tremendous advantage over its competitors. Historian Eric Hobsbawm wrote “The world economy of nineteenth century capitalism developed as a single system of free flows, in which international transfers of capital or commodities passed largely through British hands and institutions, in British ships between the continents and were calculated in pounds sterling. (Hobsbawm, 1968, pp.13-14 Unit22,p.49) However it was known that European jute manufacturers sold their products at a loss and were subsidised by their Governments, jute manufacturers in Calcutta employed the cheapest of labour and had none of the transport costs that Dundee had. Selling their products in these extremely difficult conditions made the Dundee manufacturers lobby the government for tariff reforms. A tax on products not produced within the empire. This issue championed by Joseph Chamberlain in parliament. The hope was that these reforms would strengthen ties between Britain and her colonies, revenues raised could be spent on defence and social reforms, and British markets would be protected for British manufacturers. However the financial institutes did not see tariff reforms as helping Britain, on the contrary they believed retaliation by other countries would harm British exports, and as Britain was the worlds greatest exporter, they believed this would be very damaging. British financial investments overseas had plenty to say on the matter also. Dundee’s greatest competition, “the Calcutta jute industry was wholly owned by British expatriate firms, and the jute ‘wallahs’ of Calcutta had far better connections in London than Dundee did with only two MPs,” (Unit 22, p.61) The proposed tariff reforms were defeated. As historians Cain and Hopkins put it “The defeat of tariff reform is one of the key victories of city over industry.” (Unit 22, p.59) Cain and Hopkins suggest that British policy was not shaped by industry but by ‘Gentlemanly Capitalists’ a new breed of wealthy landed gentry and entrepreneurs who invested vast sums of money overseas. For them “promoting and safeguarding investments overseas was more important to the government than acquiring raw materials or markets.” (Unit 22, p.51) This would defiantly seem to be the case with Dundee.
To conclude, Dundee received huge benefits from Empire. Dundee benefited from the raw material jute, grown within the empire in the Ganges delta of India, it benefited from safe shipping channels secured by the Royal navy in the conquest of the empire. It benefited for exports to countries within the empire, Australia and the Caribbean as well as countries of the informal empire where Britain had made huge financial investments like Argentina. The town benefited from employment in the textile factories, the docks the merchants, traders and brokers. Factory owners benefited from huge profits which they reinvested in foreign markets particularly the US. It benefited from trading links established across the world in securing the empire and from the trust in Britain as the leading financial controller of world trade and overseas investment. There were however many drawbacks for Dundee from empire. The competition from jute manufacturers within the empire in Calcutta had a huge impact on the Dundee manufacturers, whose markets were greatly depleted and whose position as supplier to the whole world became short lived as the Calcutta manufacturers supplied four times as much jute to the world markets than Dundee did. It was harmed by the refusal to impose tariff reforms, where the financiers, Gentlemen Capitalists protected their overseas financial investments before the export industry. It was severely damaged by the low wages and long hours that the mainly female staff that worked in the factories, poverty, male unemployment, poor health and infant mortality all being examples of this. It would be fair to say that the benefits outweighed the drawbacks of empire. For sixty years The Dundee jute industry flourished and expanded. Huge profits were made but they were not ploughed back into the town. Which may well have been as damaging to the town and industry as all the drawbacks of empire.
Bibliography
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Loftus D. and Mackie R. and Mombauer A. and Waites B. (2007) Nations and Imperialism, The Open University, Milton Keynes.
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