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All legal impediments in the way of these classes bettering their 

 condition have been removed; employment is procurable in 

 all normal seasons ; and an appreciable number of persons 

 belonging to these classes have been able to save money, 

 purchase landed property and rise in the social scale, thus 

 setting a stimulating example to the bulk of their brethren 

 who, owing to want of means, ability or opportunities, still 

 continue in the old state of degradation. The complaint that 

 one often hears in most places is that labourers are difficult 

 to get for the old customary rates of wages, and that it is 

 necessary either to pay them higher rates of grain wages or 

 larger allowances in the shape of perquisites to make them 

 work willingly or with zeal. This shows that a struggle is 

 going on to adjust the old customary rates of wages to the 

 new conditions under which there is increasing mobility of 

 labour. ^^ The signs of improvement in the condition of 

 these classes must, of course, be comparatively less marked, 

 but it is none the less certain. We have also seen to what 

 extent the complaint that the expansion of foreign trade has 

 destroyed the indigenous industries other than agriculture is 

 well-founded. The spinning and weaving industries have, 

 undoubtedly, suffered severely, the former having dwindled 

 to very small proportions indeed. The weaving industry has 

 not, however, suffered to the extent generally believed for 

 two reasons ; viz., first, the working population in the rural 

 tracts in the inland districts, where the cold in the winter 

 months is severer than elsewhere, still use the durable and 

 warm clothing woven out of country thread ; and secondly, 

 while, on the one hand, imported machine-made cloths have, 

 to a great extent, superseded country cloth used by the 

 higher and middle classes for male attire, there has been 

 considerable extension of demand for female colored cloths 

 of the finer varieties woven in the country owing to reduc- 



'^ As regards the manner in which economic cnstoms are modified, Mr. Marshall 

 remarks : " To say that any arrangement is dne to custom is little more than to say that 

 we do not know its canse. I believe that very many economic customs could be traced, 

 if we only had knowledge enough, to the slow equilibration of measurable motives : 

 that even in such a country as India, no custom retains its hold long after the relative 

 positions of the motives of demand and supply have so changed, that the values, which 

 would bring them into stable equilibrium, are far removed from those which the custom 

 sanctions. Where economic conditions change but little in one generation, the relative 

 values of different things may keep very near what modern economists would call their 

 normal position, and yet appear scarcely to move at all : just as, if one looks only for a 

 short time at the hour-hand of a watch, it seems not to move. But if the preponder- 

 ance of economic motive is strong in one direction, the custom, even while retaining its 

 form, will change its substince and really give way." As regards the influence of 

 custom on prices of articles of genernl consumption, Mr. Marshall says, " After examining 

 in detail the prices of chief purchases made by the peasants in som«i parts of India, 

 I have come to the conclusion that custom has less to do with them than is the case 

 with the agi'icultural laborer in the south of England." 



