MODERNISATION 69 tor into the village economy. Women had neither the skills nor the capital to resist these changes. Nor were they in a position to claim their share in the modem stctor though, at least initially, employment opportunities had been created for them in those activities. The traditional society had always imposed stringent constraints on their mobility between regions and occupations. Therefore, the mere fact that jobs were available did not always bring forth an immediate response from the local female population. However, this reluctance of local women to join the mills in larger numbers did not really create any problems for the mills. The demand of the modem sector was in fact 30 small compared to the negative impact it had created in the traditional sector that any fresh increase in demand was quickly met by more and more very needy workers pouring into the city from further and further afield. As a result, the living conditions in the jute area became totally unpalatable in a short while. The nightmarish surroundings of the mills put an almost total stop to women from other regions migrating in large numbers for work in Calcutta mills. This created a tradition of male domination in urban and industrial surroundings in the Bengal region which is yet to be fully corrected. 1 Phyllis Deane & W.A. Cole : "The British Economic Growth 168 8-19 5 4 Second Ed. Cambridge University Press 1969, pp. 143, 190, 111. 2 Karl Marx: Capital, Vol. I, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1974, p. 372. 3 Deane & Cole op. cit. p. 146. 4 R.M. Hartwell: "The Service Revolution: The Growth of services in the Modem Economy, 1700-1914" in C.M. Cipolla ed. The Industrial Revolution Second Edn. 7975 pp. 361-362. 5 John Saville: "As quoted by T.G. McGee in The Urbanisation Process in the Third World, Explorations in Search of a Theory, London, G. Bell & Sons, 1979, p. 101. 6 Alice Thorner: "Women's work in Colonial India 1881-1931" paper presented to the Seventh European Conference on Modem South Asian Studies, London, July 1981. Tables C and D. 7 Govern ment of I ndia: The Report of the Royal Commission on Labour in India 1929-3 7, Delhi 1932 /Vol II. p. 603, (henceforth referred to as Royal Commission of 19^1). 8 R.N. Gikhrist: Indian Labour and Land, Government of Bengal Press, Calcutta 1932. pp. 3. 9 See Table No. 3 and Table No. 6. AlsoJ.N. Sinha The Indian Work Force Monograph No. 11, Vol.1, Census of India 1961, Registrar General of India, Ministry of Home Affairs, New Delhi 1972 Table 8, pp. 24-25. 10 Report of Bengal Labour Commission 1896 (Calcutta 1896. (Henceforth referred to as 1896 Labour Commission), pp. 15.17.