CEREALS 77 



in imperfect husking of the lesser grains and heavy 

 breakage among the larger and more valuable grains. 

 But under the existing system the diverse kinds of rice 

 inevitably get mixed during the frantic rush of the short 

 rice season. So this rush, besides involving reckless 

 buying, in which the middleman is master, besides 

 enhancing ruinously the cost of labour, of cartage, of 

 railway freights, and of transport by country boat, by 

 river steamer, and by export shipping, leads to most 

 wasteful milling, and keeps Burma's product in a position 

 of inferiority which it need not occupy. 



And there is no truth in the ancient legend that these 

 evils are compensated for by a supposed elevation of 

 price at harvest time. Both in rice and in wheat the 

 rush is due to the existence of a comparatively wide 

 margin between European prices and produce prices. 

 This wideness of margin is due in the main to the low- 

 ness of the Indian producer's price, and the lowness of 

 that price is due to the facts already stated that he must 

 realize a part of his crop, and that he has no means of 

 storing a large surplus in safety. 



Later on the Western prices of wheat drop a little 

 under the influence of supplies from Canada, America, 

 and Eastern Europe; and the exporter in India used to 

 imagine that if his "limit" had not been lowered he 

 might have gone on shipping. Only in recent years has 

 it been pointed out that, as a rule, the internal prices 

 rise so greatly that four months after harvest the exporter 

 is entirely " out of it." In some years the rise has been 

 so great that grain shipped to Europe has very nearly 

 been reimported. 



These facts have in the last seven years been established 

 on the basis of ten years' averages, and some years have 

 passed since any attempt was made to controvert them 

 publicly. They are not affected by the circumstance that 

 in some single years abnormal conditions may have put 

 initial prices at so high a level that later prices showed 

 a decline. The established facts have been made the 

 ground of proposals for the institution of such a system 

 of modern bins, silos, or elevators throughout the 

 country as would serve the purpose of a reservoir, would 



