Ratan C. Rawlley Silk Industry and Trade

Annotation

Whilst the greatest effort has been made to ensure the quality of this text, due to the historical nature of this content, in some rare cases there may be minor issues with legibility. The present volume is intended to be an elementary intro~ duction to my Economics of the Silk Industry. It embodies the results of an inquiry into the organization of the export trade of Kashmir and Indian silks, with special reference to their utilization in Great Britain and France. In under taking this work, my principal object was to discover the exact requirements of the silk market and to present a general analysis of the facts to the interested parties. In doing this, I have pointed out a new source of supply for the consumer of raw silk and a new outlet for the producer. If India's resources of silk are to be developed on a com mercial scale, they must find an outlet. The results of personal investigations outlined in this work clearly show what this outlet ought to be. The inquiry was conducted mainly on commercial and economic lines, and covered nearly all the principal silk centres in this country and in France. It is gratifying to note that everywhere my investigations met with success, and almost all the manufacturers, merchants and brokers showed great interest in the subject. I take this opportunity of expressing my thanks to all who helped me in my investigations. I am particularly obliged to Professor Lefroy, whose perfect knowledge of the Indian silk industry I used in formulating the lines of my inquiry. Sir Frank Warner, the then President of the British Silk Association, gave me valuable information with regard to the different aspects of the British silk industry.