120 Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. [March, 1910. 



the improvement in communications, and the consequent ad- 

 dition to the general level of prices of something representing 

 the aggregate cost of carriage. A further cause of the high 

 prices of food-grains is, no doubt, to be found in the cotton 

 boom itself. There must have occurred a great and sudden 

 displacement of capital and labour from the cultivation of 

 food-grains to the cultivation of cotton. Such a displacement 

 on a large scale could only result in a shortage of supply of the 

 food-grains, and a rise in their prices, first on the Bombay 

 side, and later throughout India. 



Let us now apply our next test. Was there any marked 

 rise in the price of imports ? Yes, there certainly did occur 

 about this time a very well-defined rise in the price of imports. 

 But now let us look a little closer and see what are the actual 

 commodities of which the prices rose, and what do we find \ 

 We find that it is to the cotton goods that the rise of price is 

 confined, and what is not attributable to cotton goods is at- 

 tributable to Canton silk, the price of which was no doubt affect- 

 ed sympathetically by the boom in cotton. We see then that 

 it would be illogical to draw any inference from the high price 

 of imports in those years. 



Now there are at least two objections which may be urged 

 against the preceding method of analysis. In the first place it 

 may be said that the rise in the prices of food-grains consequent 

 on the cotton boom was only temporary and could not be of a 

 permanent character apart from the monetary change. Now so 

 far as food- grains are concerned there were several causes, con- 

 nected with supply and demand, which must obviously have 

 contributed to the perpetuation of a high level of prices. In 

 1861 there was scarcity in parts of Agra and the Punjab, and 

 also in Rajputana. In 1866 — a year by which the Uriyas still 

 compute their ages — the terrible Orissa famine. That famine 

 probably forced up the prices of food-grains over the greater 

 part of India, and the additions to the currency merely enabled 

 a higher level of prices to be maintained after the acute dis- 

 tress had disappeared. 



The second objection that may be taken is that it is not to 

 either exports or imports that we should look for evidence of 

 depreciation, but rather to such indigenous products as ghi 9 

 which would be altogether unaffected by supply and demand in 

 extra-Indian markets. Now there is undoubtedly something 

 in this contention, but unfortunately this is the very class of 

 products about which we have least reliable information. The 

 onus of proof is on those who assert the existence of deprecia- 

 tion. A great deal of course depends on the meaning we assign 

 to the term. If we confine the meaning of the term to a 

 eneral rise of prices of all commodities, irrespective of causes 

 which may affect their relative values, then it is at least doubt- 

 ful if there was any such thing as depreciation in these years, 



