M iscellaneous t 



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[Jan. 1908 



of course, deny that the price of rice has risen, but he shows that the significance of 

 this fact depends upon a number of considerations. If excessive jute-growing were 

 the cause of the dearness of rice, we should not expect to find other grains which ar e 

 little cultivated or consumed in Bengal in any way affected. But as a matter of 

 fact, while the price of rice is 58 per cent, above normal, the price of wheat is 26 pe r 

 cent, and that of maize 70 per cent, in excess of the previous average. The price of 

 food-stuffs has advanced all over India, and for this universal enhancement jute 

 cannot be blamed. Coming to the specific allegation that the enhanced price of rice 

 is due to the increased area devoted to jute, Mr. Oldham remarks that " although 

 the total area under jute in the two Provinces has increased during the past six 

 years by more than one million acres, there has been no corresponding decrease in 

 the area under rice. In fact the tendency during the same six years has on 

 the whole, as the returns show, been for the area under rice to increase." Thus jute 

 must in large measure have brought new ground into cultivation. It should also 

 be borne in mind that the jute area is not used solely for that crop, for the practice 

 of growing winter paddy after the jute has been gathered is slowly extending. Mr. 

 Oldham thus explains one of the main arguments against jute-growing, the rise in 

 the price of rice, and shatters another, which rested on the assumption that the rice 

 area had decreased. In dealing with the causes of the enhanced cost of rice, Mr. 

 Oldham propounds a theory which lias at first sight the appearance of a paradox 

 but which is nevertheless not incredible. It is that the dearness of rice is partly due 

 to the increased prosperity of the ryot. The failure of the winter rice crop of 1905 

 and of the autumn crop of 1906 produced a scarcity which would in normal circum- 

 stances have driven the ryot to consume Burma rice or coarser grains. But the 

 ryot was not in the mood for reducing the quality of his diet. A profit of 15^ corers 

 from jute-growing in a single year had raised his standard of comfort. He has 

 bought himself an unbrella. He has taken to wearing shoes. He smokes, and 

 prefers to go by train instead of walking. And he has learned to appreciate Bengal 

 rice. As a result of his sense of being well off he refused to buy Burma rice, though 

 large quantities were imported for his benefit, and his demands have tended to help 

 the upward tendency of the price of the Bengal variety. The wages paid at the 

 increasing multitude of mills have had a similar effect upon another section of the 

 population, and thus it may be said that the growing prosperity of the people of 

 Bengal has been largely responsible for the dearness of Bengal rice. For clerks, the 

 professional classes, and urban dwellers generally, the rise is unfortunate, but they 

 are not the only classes to be considered. 



II. 



Mr. Oldham's conclusions regarding the alleged injurious effect of extended 

 jute-growing upon the rice crop are fully confirmed by the experiments with arnan 

 paddy which form the subject of a Report compiled by Mr. F. Smith, the Deputy 

 Director of Agriculture in Bengal, and issued as the first of a series of Departmental 

 Records. Mr. Oldham gave reasons for believing that the high price of rice was due 

 to causes affecting other food crops which are not grown in Bengal. He further 

 pointed out that, while the area under jute is being largely increased, there had been 

 no decline in the rice area. And finally he referred to the fact that the cultivator is 

 beginning to realise the possibility of growing rice and jute on the same field in the 

 same year, and of thus obtaining two profitable crops instead of one. That this 

 statement is not in any way optimistic is shown by statistics taken from the 

 settlement records of a few estates in Eastern Bengal. These indicate that nearly 

 half the land on the estates in question on which jute is grown also grows a crop of 

 paddy the same year. If this double crop is expedient from the point of view of 

 agricultural science, then all anxiety on the score of the extended cultivation of jute 

 may be dismissed. Hence the importance of the experiments carried out under the 



