F— ECONOMIC SCIENCE AND STATISTICS 133 



Secondly, payment of the whole wage due is made once a month, the 



standard rates being as follows : 



Cents a day. Rs. a month. 

 Man ...... 50 11 



Wife ...... 40 9 



Two children . . . -3° 14 



34 

 Careful estimates of budgets have been compiled, to ensure that the 

 wage rate is sufficient for reasonable subsistence. The monthly ex- 

 penditure is calculated as follows : 



Rice 1 bushel at current rates for the man 

 >> j >) )> i> it >> wire 



,, 1 ,, ,, ,, „ ,, 2 working children 



A further Rs.7 and 50 cents is allowed for other grains, such as gram, 

 dhal (a pea), and soya beans. Thus the family bill for the main food- 

 stuffs is about Rs.20 a month against a family income of Rs.34. To this 

 must Be added expenditure on oddments such as chillies, spices, sugar. 

 I inspected the edibles in several of the co-operative stores run by the 

 planters on their estates, and they represented over half the total trade 

 of the store. 



The remaining trade was in cooking vessels made of clay, and clothing, 

 of which the chief items were saris (women's dresses), vertis (men's skirts), 

 shirts, loin cloths, head cloths, and rain shawls with hood attached. The 

 vertis and head clothing were the only products coming from Lancashire. 

 The shirt is frequently native- or Indian-made, from homespun khaddar. 

 But the bulk of the clothing is Japanese. When, in pursuance of the 

 Ottawa agreement, textile quotas were imposed by proclamation on 

 Japanese textile imports, as from July 31, 1934, the Japanese in part 

 got round the quotas by sending in the finished article, which was not 

 quota'ed, instead of piece goods. ' The imports of Japanese made-up 

 apparel have intensified during the past three years. This development not 

 only represents an increase of possibly 50 per cent, of the Japanese quota, 

 but has also caused considerable hardship to the local tailoring commun- 

 ity.' u I found a widespread condemnation of the textile quota. It came at 

 a time when the earning power of the population had been heavily reduced 

 by distress and disease, and it was forced by London on Colombo. But 

 for the reduced cost of clothing due to the Japanese imports the real 

 earnings of the working population of Ceylon, and in particular those of 

 the general agricultural population, whose returns vary with the price of 

 their produce, would have fallen below subsistence level after 1929. 



It is noteworthy how frequently the Royal Commission on Labour in 



India quotes with admiration the methods of Ceylon. The tea company 



itself, the Ceylon Government and the Government of India's agent 



from Madras (who resides in Kandy and is entitled to visit the estate and 



11 Extract from the Ceylon Customs Administration Report 0/1935. 



