The Employers' Response
The Employers' Response
This chapter examines the response of employers in Dundee's jute industry to the competition between India and the Scottish city, dubbed Juteopolis, in the area of jute production during the British imperial period. Dundee's connections with India were multiple and complex, but after the 1870s they were increasingly shaped by the problem of competition from Calcutta in markets for jute goods, competition which came to be seen to threaten the prosperity, and in some views the very survival, of the city's main industry. This chapter considers how Indian competition was understood in Dundee, and how these understandings helped shape the employers' responses. It also discusses the raw jute issue in relation to protectionism and empire, with particular emphasis on the export tax assessed on Bengal's raw jute and its remittance for exports to Britain. Finally, it analyses Dundee employers' views of the conditions of labour in Calcutta and the relevance of the Indian Factory Acts to the issue of competition between the two cities.
Keywords: jute industry employers, competition, India, Dundee, Juteopolis, protectionism, British Empire, Britain, Indian Factory Acts
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