HAPPY INDIA 97 



than pre-war prices, I find it difficult to make a re- 

 duction in the valuation so long as the present prices 

 keep up ; there has been a tendency for the prices to 

 rise. There is no doubt that many of the prices 

 in 1919 were 30 per cent., 40 per cent., 50 per cent., 

 and up to 100 per cent, more than the prices of 

 1913, and when I looked at the prices for 1921 and 

 the beginning of 1922 I fully expected to see a great 

 reduction of price, but I found out that I was mis- 

 taken, and so far I have seen no evidence to justify 

 me in making a reduction. For some reasons one 

 may expect that prices will tend to continue to be 

 much higher than in 1913. There is no doubt 

 that Russian production of corn will be much less 

 than it used to be for many years to come. There 

 is no doubt that the population of the United States 

 and Canada is rapidly increasing. The same can 

 be said of the Argentine Republic, and this rapid 

 increase in population in those great corn-growing 

 countries will tend to keep up the price of wheat, 

 and that will have a tendency to keep up the price 

 of other grain, such as rice. 



If any person likes to prophesy that in five years' 

 time the prices of all this grain and other produc- 

 tion will be much less than they were in 1919, I 

 find no fault, and I say, if you like to reduce my 

 estimates of agricultural production by one-fifth, take 

 off 300,000,000, and that will still leave the sub- 

 stantial figure of 1,200,000,000 as the value of the 

 annual production. 



But in addition to the value of the production 



7 



