

Vol VI, No. 3.] The Rupee and Indian Prices. 127 



[N.8.] 



have suffered through the rise in price of Indian food-stuffs. 

 The whole trend of opinion of those whose relations witli the 

 cultivator and the labourer entitle their views to most respect 

 leads to the recognition of the amelioration of the lower classes 

 as an established fact. As regards the cultivator, nothing can 

 be more obvious than that, taking good years with bad, he 

 profits by the high prices of food-grains. On the other hand the 

 labourer is, owing to railways and the demands for labour by 

 tea, indigo, jute, cotton, coal, and other industries, in a special- 

 ly favoured position as regards bargaining strength. The real 

 burden falls on those who work on fixed wages. The amlah 

 class, no doubt, suffers, but it must be remembered that this 

 is the class which has fattened for centuries on ill-gotten gains 

 derived from the ignorant raiyat, who is only now getting back 

 his own. Moreover, so far as Government service is concerned, 

 the situation is largely relieved by the magnanimous distribu- 

 tion of largesse to clerks and menials in tiie form of grain com- 

 pensation allowance. 



Those who would by legislation stop the export of food- 

 grains in order to lower their price in India itself are advocating 

 a principle which strikes at the very root of our present 

 monetary policy. Our very salvation consists at present in the 

 free export of food-grains and raw materials. Indian manu- 

 factures are not yet in such a flourishing condition as to enable 

 them to replace the bulk of the exported food-grains in our 

 export sheet, and the stoppage of this class of export would 

 inevitably endanger, if not actually reverse, the present 

 favourable balance of trade. 



The surplus of exports is, however, being more and more 

 provided by cotton, jute, and the simpler forms of manufac- 

 tures. Also India is supplying her own coal and gold to a 

 larger extent than was formerly the case. It would, however, 

 be idle to look for any great fall in the prices of food-grains on 

 this account. India has now entered into full commercial 

 relations with Europe, and she has, moreover, adopted a 

 /old standard, and it is inevitable that the relative prices 

 of food-stuffs to manufactures must approximate to the relative 

 prices that obtain in the manufacturing countries with which 

 India trades. Her efforts to establish manufacturing indus- 

 tries, in so far as they are seriously directed to economic 



mischievous pol 



every 



country to so arrange its commercial and trade econ 



ufactured articles and 



as 



Most 



great countries of Europe and the United States of America 



test 



we 



\bly certain that it is old prices which must d« ermine the 



