MOBILITY OF GRAIN IN 1896-97 271 



on relief works, and in remote villages discretion was 

 given to local officers to assist such traders, if neces- 

 sary, with money advances ; but this discretion was 

 little used. Private trade everywhere and always 

 proved equal to maintaining and distributing an ade- 

 quate supply of food grain, even in the most dis- 

 tressed and isolated tracts. There can be no doubt 

 that this would have been impossible but for the 

 extensive railway communications which now exist 

 in all parts of these provinces, whereby the wheeled 

 traffic and pack-cattle were set free to spread the 

 grain among the villages from the nearest railway- 

 stations. The railway returns show that for the nine 

 months alone from October, 1896, to June, 1897, the 

 rail-borne imports of food grain were 645,628 tons, 

 and the exports 306,377 tons; while this vast and 

 beneficent trade movement was effected not only 

 without difficulty or apparent effort, but with great 

 pecuniary advantage to the State. Of these imports 

 nearly 325,000 tons came from Bengal, the greater 

 part being Burma rice carried from Calcutta.'* 



The mobility of grain at this period is best shown 

 by comparing the prices in different districts. Prac- 

 tically the price was the same in the district in which 

 the harvest had failed as in the district which had 

 enjoyed a bumper crop. In 1896-97 the rate of a 

 particular grain was sometimes quoted higher in a 

 well-stocked Meerut district than in a market of 

 afflicted Bundelkhand. 



The development of railway communication had 

 thus, by the end of the century, deprived a 'famine' 

 of one of its greatest terrors. Even in areas in which 

 the crops have totally failed food is now to be had in 

 abundance. The price, however, is high, and the 

 people thrown out of work by the interruption of 

 their industry have no means of purchasing it. How 



* North-Western Provinces Government Gazette, November 27, 1897, 

 p. 484. 



