Protectionism for native Brittish industry may have played a role, and also the English may not have considered the Hindoos "civilized" enough (ie. industrialized enough) at the time to operate such factories properly, and I'm certainly not saying I'd agree with this, but it seems like maybe typical ethnocentric thinking for humans. Real good question though, Jens, and I wonder about it, too. As for 19th and early 20th century W European attitudes towards wootz, they seem to be a blend of horror/fear at the deeds its weilders could do with it, and the contempt in which most traditional (including European traditional) material culture was then held by an emergent culture mostly unmixedly proud of its own relatively new industrialism.
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