Note 29 — M

In a note on a visit to Jammalamadugu in the Cuddapah district, Bishop Whitehead writes as follows.29 “Lately Mr. Macnair has made an effort to improve the methods of weaving, and he showed us some looms that he had set up in his compound to teach the people the use of a cheap kind of fly-shuttle to take the place of the hand-shuttle which is universally used by the people. The difficulties he has met with are characteristic of many attempts to improve on the customs and methods of India. At present the thread used for the hand-shuttle is spun by the Māla women from the ordinary cotton produced in the district. The Māla weavers do not provide their own cotton for the clothes they weave, but the Kāpus give them the cotton from their own fields, pay the women a few annas for spinning it, and then pay the men a regular wage for weaving it into cloth. But the cotton spun in the district is not strong enough for the fly-shuttle, which can only be profitably worked with mill-made thread. The result is that, if the fly-shuttle were generally adopted, it would leave no market for the native cotton, throw the women out of work, upset the whole system on which the weavers work, and, in fact, produce widespread misery and confusion!”