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Carnegies of India and the Great Steel Industry They Are Developing:
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OMBAT, 1H10. (Special Corres-
wj I pondence to The Bee I have
I liud a chat with one of the most
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Asiatic continent. I refer to V.
J. Tata, the heart of the rich
Tata family, which ownsthe Taj Mahal at
Bombay, the biggest hotel of the. fur east;
Which holds the majority of stock In the
largest cotton mills of India, and which la
about starting a steel and Iron Industry
here In Hindustan which may make them
the Carncgles of Asia. ' 1
Have you ever heurd of the Tatas? Their
family is to Hindustan what the Mttsuis
are to Japan, the Rothschilds to Kurope
r the Vanrierbiltn and Asiorn to the United
lutes. It is a family of millionaires which
makes its money breed like Australian rab
klia and whose every touch turns all things
to gold.
It is one of the oldest families of history.
It comes from the rich sect of fire wor
hlpeiB known as Parsees. Its uneestors
vine priests of that religion and they are
tuppoBcd to have descended from the kings
of 1'ersla. The Tatas were, driven out of
I'ersla with the other i'arsees and they
settled on the coast above Bombay. By
ami Ly Uiey drifted away from the priest-'
hood and went into trade. The great
grandfather of the present heads of the
family was a government contractor at
the tlie of tiur civil war. He made and
lost several fortunes and gave hundreds
of thousands of rupees to the support of
his faith.
Jamsetjoe Nusserwanjee Tata, this man's
on, cume to Bombay as a boy and engaged
In general trading. He. made money and
Invested In cotton mills and later on es
tablished a spinning and weaving Industry
which has revolutionized that business In
India. Ho established mills not only at
Bombay, ' but in different parts of the In
terior, and handled them so Well that the
stockholders got on the average 20 per
cent a year as well as stock dividends
worth millions. In one mill he paid back
In profits more - than thirteen times the
original capital and he founded other en
terprises equally as good. The man be
came a multimillionaire and when he died
tie had Interests In all parts of India as
'well as In England and In China, Japa
and other countries of the far east.
J. N. Tata Introduced all sorts of mod
ern Inventions into the cotton Industry. He
believed In throwing old machinery on the
scrap heap, and he had everything up-to-date.
It was to benefit Indian travelers
that he founded the Taj Mahal hotel at a
cost of one or two millions, and he had
his own steamers to fight the grgat liners,
which were charging high freight rates.
He was a charitable millionaire. He gave
away great vums to the church and he es
tablished the Tata ltesearch institute at
Bangalore, for the education of Parse
young men.
One of the big schemes of this man was
to utilize the rivers of the hills back, of
. Bombay to generate electricity for the Cot
ton niills. Thky is now being done by th
building of great dams across the necks '
of three valleys, thus making reservoirs
with a surface area of 5,000 acres, and a
storage capacity of 8.000,003,000 cubic feet.
The power will be conducted to Bombay,
a' distance of forly-three miles, by over
bead wires.
More Important than all the above are
the pWns of the elder Tata for a steel
and lion Industry for Hindustan. I first
he.trd of them through the viceroy's min
ister of commerce and Industry at Calcutta,
and 1 have learned more from 1). J. Tata,
the son of J. N. Tata, here at Bombay.
I met Mr. Tata In his office and we talked
tor an hour about these steel works. They
have be-n st tried with a capital of $S.CO0.
W0, and are already well under way. They
are situated about V0 miles from Calcutta
and not far front great Ix-ds of iron and.
coal. American managers, metallurgists
and engineers have been employed, and the
enterprise Is being pushed for all It is
worth. The company has made a contract
with the government to take -O.OtH) tons of
steel rails per annum for a term of teh
years, and the officials have also agreed
to build a railroad for them at a cost of
tli.COO.U). to carry their ore to the mills.
Mr. Tata says that the company will prob
ably pay dividends within four or five
years. He thinks the profits will be at
least lj per cent and that the business will
steadily grow. He tells me the plant will
consist of ttyo blast furnaces, six open
hearth basic steel furnaces of forty tons
each, three merchant bar ni.lls and bloom
ing end rail mills. It will produce IJOIJO
tuns of pig Iron and T-,000 tons of finished
steel per year.
If these works succeed they will be the
btttlnnlng of an Industry which may run
high Into the millions. India Is- ulieady
Importing something like JiYOvM.Ol'O worth
of fron and steel. It annually takes KO.
OoO.OOO worth of railway steel and rolling
stork, as well us machinery and hardware
to the amount of Ko.lHW.iXW more. The gov
ernment demands are enormous. Its rail
ways are longer than those of the Un.tcd
Kingdom, and It has eighty-seven railway
shops, whose average force Is 1.000 hands.
It has arsenals anh dockyards employing
2,lXM men, and It Imports great quantities
of uch materials as thc-te works demand.
In addition to this, factories and mills are
now springing up over India, and they all
need machinery. There are almost l.uio
cotton mills, as well as Jute mills, suar
mills and foundries -making iron and brass.
At present Oieat Biitulu Is monopollxinK
the Importations. It snips about ail the
machinery and mill work, the most of the
lullway materials and the greater part of
the Iron and steel. If India tan make Its
own goods of this kind it will result In
Uie eniulo) tuviit of millions of the SatUves
and will Increase the wealth and prosperity
of the country.
Dining n.y talk with. Mr. Ta-ta I asked
him to tell me ahout the mineral resources
of India. He said:
"We had to study them before planning
the stei I works. My father, you rihiw,
originated the Idea. He took It up twenty
five years ago with the hope of making
this a great manufacturing nation. He had
made some study of England and believed
that its greatness came from Its Iron and
'coal. He wanted to see whether India had
similar possibilities and hired prospectors
to go over the peninsula. He finally found
certain deposits which he thought might be
used for pig metal. The coal, however, was
of a low grade and It needed special pro
cesses to fit it for cooking. He offered
1 rizes for the Invention of such processes,
und when they were discovered he pro
posed to the government that it should
grant him concessions for starting the in
diitry. but he could get no satisfaction.
He wus thin forced to drop the mirtter.
Twenty years later lie UKalt took ll up
with Lord Hamilton, the secretary of state
for India, und interested him. Loid Ham
ilton told him that the government would
be glad to aid him In such an undertaking,
and as. a result he again began Ids Investi
gations, spending $100,000 or so upon them
in the last years of his Ufa. We have con
tinued his investigations."
"What did you find?" I usked.
"Much that no one Imagined existed,"
was the reply. "The geological survey
had mentioned several Iron deposits. We
reprospected them and finally thought
we had some large enough for our pur
pose. We sent to the United States for
experts, and among others secured
Charles Page Perin to tell us whether It
would pay to work the mines,. The first
deposits we examined were not far from
Nagpur, and upon our, arrival at that
place we went into the Mineral Museum.
As we looked at ItMr. Weld, one of uor
American mining engineers, . observed
some fine ore labeled with the location of
the deposit. We looked It up In the geo
logical survey and found the ore was de
scribed In three lines of print.
"We went to the place and discovered
there two great hills of almost solid
Iron. The ore was 70 per cent pure and
superior to the best of your ores. It
was the equal of almost any ore bf the
world. In testing it we used a diamond
drill, sinking it into the ore bodies to a
depth of 100 feet. We assayed the bor-
TXs ".Mahal Hotel at ombay
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Ings and found the ore good throughout.
We reported this to the geological survey,
but they claimed there must be u mistake.
They sent out their own Investigators, and
they reported that the Iron was even bet- and Japan?"
ter than we had represented.
"At the Bame time," continued Mr. Tata,
"we found deposits of good coking coal
not far away, and also limestone and
the other necessary conditions ' for iron
manufacturers. We were granted conces
sions for these various deposits, and as
a result our steel plant Is now going up.
We have coke ovens, which -will turn out
600 tons per day, and our blast furnaces
will have a capacity of 200 tons every
twenty-four hours."
"Your works should succeed the better
on account of the Swadeshi movement,'
said I.
"They will be favored by the t'ast
locomotives, bridges and steel materials.
If we get only a small percentage of this
tiade ve shall have more than we can do."
'Will InMIa ever export steel to China
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"I doubt it," was the reply. "China has
already started a big steel works of Its
own at Han-Yang. It lias far greater
mineral deposits than we have, and It
might supply Japan, although that coun
try has' already established an extensive
steel Industry. Our home market will take
all that we or any native institution can
make for generations to cpme."
"But has India the money to establish,
such Institutions?"
"There Is no doubt of that fact," replied
the Parsee capitalist. "There are mil
lions In India awaiting investment if the
people can be sure tnat the money will
pay dividends without danger of loss. I
don't know that you have heard of In
dia's buried wealth. It is enormous. I
have seen estimates that gold to the
amount of three billion dollars Is burlart Mrtslde for canltal "
..Taia-'Qsade of fhe
Steel Worlds..
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dtans on that account," was the reply.
"Our people will patronize home Industry
and Swadeshi goods or goods made by
sucH industries will undoubtedly be pur
chased' in preference to imports from
abroad of the same quality and of the
same price. When our works begin oper
ation, India will be taking about 400,000 small sums. We want to get this money Into
tons of foundry iron, 200,000 tons of steel citf uiation and we how to do so some day.
rails and 190,000 tons of bars and plates. At the same time we have many rich men;
It will have to Increase Its Imports of and there Is no reason why we should go
A cSamseLw HusserwaBAee Tata
Indian Tliltipijairc.TfiilaiiQiropisb
under the ' pround. There are million,
which are hoarded in the shape of jeweliy,
and a great amount is hidden away In
The conversation here turned to the cot
ton mills In which the Tatas afe so largely
Interested and which the father of U. J.
Tata huiit up. I asked Mr. Tata as to the
condition of the husiness.
"It Is rapidly growing," said he. "We
now have here in India over 200 mills, and
200 more could be established and run at a
pioflt. Most of our mills work day and
night, and we cannot supply the demand.
Our home market Is enormous. We have
300,000,000 people, and they all dress In cot
tons. Just over the way is China, which
Is waking tip to the western civilization
and Increasing its wants. There are 400,-
uifve
Omaha Knights Templar on Their Way to Conclave
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MEMBERS Or m. CALVARY CQMM&NDERY OF OUAHA
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95. 83 SHE,INCf THEM. OIF . & & GB,
BOl'T 10 men, many of them ac- several baggage anq express cars. It was
A I companled by their wives and
A '' I members of their family, de-
I'ki iru iroin Finaiia on a special
train funday afternoon hound
for the great thirty-first trien
nial conclave of the Knights Templar at
Chicago. In-legates from a half doaen
towns outside of Omaha were In the dele
gation. The special ti J n was a kplendidly lux
urious one composed of tlt;ht pullmans and
manned by a crew of Knights Templar,
chosen especially for the duty.
It was promised by most of the Uappy
delegati who b parted, that they would
remain away on their vacations In parts
of the country after the conclave had
come to an end.
Those who had charge of the delegation
were Kmlnent Commander Richard C. Jor
dan. John Kelly, entTulltmo, and the
following ol'f.cers of tho Mount Calvary
SKEIRCr THEM. OFF
Commadery conclave dub; President.
Charles II. Shook; Zora 11. Clark. secr .ary,
:.:id Victor White, treasurer. J. W. May
nard. ii!t cominamler and J'nlon Pacific
agent, and Oioiite Weht, city agent of the
Northwestern, 0. reeled thu nianaKomeiu
of tin" train as fjr as Boone.
Ainom? the out-of-town delejrates In tho
purty Were Janus Howard of Benson, i..
I), lllchards and J. H. K'ecne of Kreinont
and Henry Gibbons and Cnaiies Ki.ieii of
Kearney.
The special made a three-hour stop at
Boone, la., and its pan-eiiiirs enjoyed a
gorgeous lime- us quests of the Boone
Knights Templar. A big banquet was
served und a number of automobiles were
then pressed Into sen Ire In taking the
l.-li.!ng dt legates 0:1 a tlghtseelng tour
of the little city.
f'evcral of the lo- al delegates Were named
on the staff of directors In charge'of vari
ous paits of the' conclave program. The
local men ugrtcd before departing that'
they would make no utiempt to (jet the
nert coiu-laie. Inasmuch as the stupendous
event possibly could not be curried , out
lore, and because two other cities were
to make an overpowering effort In thut
dire-lion.
When tho votes were counted and It wus
found that l'envtr hud secund the next
'.'ouelave, there was rejoicing amongst the
innaha delegation as the members would
rather seti it helil in tiio west than go east.
000,000 there who wear cottons. There Is a
Mg market In Farther India, an'tn tha
west of us as well as In AfrleddIurieed
the markets for the cotton mills of this part
of the world are so great that wo do not
Yieed those of either Kurope or America."
"Your father established rame of the first
spinning mills, did he not?"
"Not the first. There was a cotton mill
at Calcutta In IMS, und the first at Bom
buy was established In 1S0I. My father
established his orlgiulal mill much later.
lie was one of the first to Mart mills In the
interior. He founded one at Nagpur In
174, and, when lie died, he waa inter
ested In many, not only here, but in other
parts of the country. He was then em
ploying altogether In his cotton mills alone
about 8,000 hands. These mills are atlll
working and are doing well. My father waa
the first to Introduce ring spinning Into
India, and in this he revolutionised, the)
Industry."
"Tell me something about vour lahnr aim W
ment, Mr. Tata. Can the Hindoos handl
machinery?"
"Yes. They are excellent factory hands.
Our boys are especially good. We hav
many little children of 10 or 12 in the mills
whoe supple fingers can do quite as well
as those of the full-grown women employed
at Manchester. Indeed, 1 think they do
better."
"Wliat are the wages paid In the mills?"
'The average Is 15 rupees a month.
that means about or over 15 cents a day.
inat Is good wages for India. A al
can H- 1 ... I
...v n umn w a month, iu
iivtt?N over liar tm r um ....fi,
-" " 1 ftjiuiii. vur
cnlef trouble is ihnt h k..j. ...m
..w ' ' .1 u l 111 lUf
work if they get money ahead.' They will
labor for two or three months and then
lay off and spend what they have saved.
If a man has 100 rupees ($33) ahead, he will,
like as not, leave the mills and go back
to his native village and spend a year or
more In riotous living. When he has spent
all he has, and all ho can borrow, he will
come back half ttarving- and ask for a
place. We do what we can to keep our
hands and to educate them for, their work '
We have a pension fund and also a sav
ings fund, to which the men can con
tribute a certain percentage of their .In
comes, the company paying them dlvldiuda
upon their savings." A
Coining back from my Interview wltfjAjr
Tata to the Taj Mahal hotel, 1 passed
long lines of bullock carts carrying cotton
inrougn the city. A continuous procession
of these may be seen here at all hours
of the day throughout the yoar. Bombay's
prosperity is founded upon cotton, ll has
an enormous market, and its shipments of
raw cottons and cotton goods approximate
$;0,0Cv,lW a year. It has cotton mills hole
and there throughout the city, and their
smokestacks ure to be seen everywhere.
This province is one of the largest of the
cotton producers, and It does more spin
ning and weaving than any other. There
are about ninety mills in Bombay alone, or
more than one-third of all the cotton mills
of tiie country. The largest mill owners
are the Tatas, the Sassoons and other mil
lionaire Parsees. The capital Invested in
the business all told amounts to J'iO.OOo.OO),
or more.
The cotton Industry of India was muds
by our civil war. They were growing coi
ton long before that, but the exports never
averaged more than ?lu,0on,oo0 a year. When
Hie war ln-Kaii und our cottons were shut
out of i:i,;,and, th.iau of India leaped to
the front, and the year the war closed they
had rt ached the enormous total of lsj,
Oio.OM,. That was me booming time for
Bombay. The people lhoj.;ht there would
be no end to llieir prosperity. Land went
up several hundred per tent, and every
one thought that tnis would be the great
port of the world. Then Came the sur
lendir ol lee, and to. toll dropped like a
shot. it was 10 cunts a pound, and 11
went down 10 -' uiiu lontinucd to drop
This made a panic In Bombay. The Paieto
hanks iaiUil for m.llioiis, and thousands
Were bankrupt. The cotlou exports steadily
liil, and in li.'O tin y aii.oun.ed to only 1IJ-
Ojj.i,.;. Kuu'i. tnat time most of the present
Jiii.ls have been buill, und the exports
ol taw lot. 011 iia.e tise.i. The laltei aio
now raim.n at sometnh.g like Jvi.io.j.oO'I a
year, wii le lite exports of manufactured
goods are ;;;5.ou0,0W.
.h.n the Industry needs is a protective
taint', and especially so against Kng.snd.
Tho Minciittter mill men, however, will
nut allow Parliament lo grant this, and by
so doilia they are keeping India back. If
the British would give the country the
same rilus that we of the United Stales
have us to such matters, India could noil'
only make nil tho cotton goods used ifX
bur 3o0.0u0.0u0, but could export goods
China and tho other countries of Asia A
protect, ve tariff would turn Hindustan Into
a beehive, and would make It one of the
lichtst Instead of, as It Is-now, one of l"
poorest of luiids.
1'HAMC G. CA KI'tNTWIi
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