Vol. VI, No. 3.] The Rupee and Indian Prices. Ill 



[N.S.] 



Everyone whose lot has been cast for any considerable 

 period in close touch with the rural incidents of an agricultural 

 country like India is familiar with the manner in which the 

 crops are grojra and harvested, and then sold by the cultivator 

 to the local dealer, a portion of every favourable harvest 

 being retained for local consumption. Fewer are fully conver- 

 sant with the later stages, with the manner in which the local 

 dealers sell their crops to the agents of the larger dealers who 

 control the distributing agency. A portion of the crops — a far 

 smaller portion than is commonly supposed, — is shipped to 

 foreign countries. The principal exports are the cereals, wheat 

 and rice, but a certain quantity of jawar, bajra, and pulses, is 

 now exported. This export of crops is a distinctive feature of 

 modern industrial and commercial conditions. 



When we come to review the agricultural features of India 

 throughout the 19th century we are at once struck by the 

 extraordinary difference between the first half and the second 

 half of the century. About the year 1860 we cross the 

 rubicon between the old state of things and the new. The 

 years 1850-1860 constitute in many respects an epoch-marking 

 decade. As we shall presently see. a great monetary change 

 was in progress, but the changes in the general conditions of 

 trade and commerce were not less remarkable. These changes, 

 first noticeable about the year 1853, but held in abeyance for a 

 brief span by the terrible events of 1857, are rendered more 

 conspicuous in the years immediately succeeding the assump- 

 tion of government by the Crown. Trunk lines and telegraphs 

 were pushed forward, and great progress was made with roads 

 and canals. A policy was inaugurated of which the key-note 

 was consolidation and internal development as distinct from 

 external acquisition and conquest. With all its marvellous com- 

 mercial activity the Company had never really succeeded in 

 materially altering the internal conditions that affected the 

 supply of and demand for the staple food-stuffs. During the 

 first half of the 19th century the conditions governing pro- 

 duction and distribution remained much the same as they had 

 been in the preceding centuries. With a very imperfect system 

 of communications there could be little export of food- grains, 

 and, in any case, the commercial instincts of the Company 

 were chiefly directed to the making of large profits by quick 

 methods. Spices and silks absorbed their attention. 



But what specially characterises the first half of the cen- 

 tury is the absence of any considerable market. Such scanty 

 information in respect of prices as we possess, derived chiefly 

 through the medium of Settlement reports, the laborious com- 

 pilations of Crown Officers, suffices to emphasize very clearly 

 the enormous differences that prevailed between prices at 

 neighbouring places in the same year, and at the same place in 

 different years. The whole of India, in fact, consisted eco- 



