62 
'The Indian Wlieat Trade. 
It will be noticed that the price was higher in 1886 than in 
1881 in the three most important wheat provinces — the Punjab, 
the North-Western Provinces, and the Central Provinces ; that 
it was practically the same in Oudh ; and that it was higher for 
all the provinces together. Yet the price had fallen in England 
from 45.S. 4d per quarter in 1881 to 31.';. in 1886. i 
Mr. W. J. Harris, who is a high authority upon the question 
before us, commenting in a letter to the present writer on Messrs. 
Ralli's returns, says that the cost of transport " evidently means | 
cost of transport from the local place of largest growth to the | 
particular market named, and not transport from that market i 
to Great Britain." I have taken it as meaning transport to 
Calcutta or some other port from which Messrs. Ealli ship 
wheat ; but it is quite possible that merely local transjDort may 
have been in the mind of some of the witnesses. As to the | 
price obtained by the ryot, Mr. Harris remarks : " It evidently I 
refers to the price on the farm, and not to the price at the 
market town named." He adds : " The whole information goes 
to prove that, as a general rule, the Indian grower is more 
satisfied with the prices of to-day in rupees than he was with 
the prices in rupees eight to fifteen years ago." 
Upon this question of prices a gentleman holding a high 
position in India, whose name I am not at liberty to mention, | 
says that, in consequence of the growth of wheat for export, the j 
staple food of the people in some parts of Northern India | 
has gone up in price from 20 to 25 per cent, since last year, 
and he gives the following prices, as current in the North- 
Western Provinces in January 1887 and 1888, in support of his ' 
statement : — • ; 
Prices, Seers (2 lbs.) per Rupee. j 
January 1887 January 1888 ' 
Wheat ,«.,.., 16 12 
Gram (peas) . , . . . t 20 17 
Bailey ....... 2G 16 
Bajra (millet) ,20 15 
Jouar ....... 21 17 
llice (cheapest sort) . . t . • 15 10 | 
The authority referred to deems the general rise in the price 
of food here shown — 33 per cent, in the cases of wheat and rice 
— of grave importance, as showing how entu'ely the people are 
dependent upon the character of the year's crops for the pre- 
vention of famine. To quote his actual words : " The wheat 
export trade has withdrawn the stores the people usually kept, 
and now a bad season brings them at once face to face with 
famine." Some independent testimony, that of Mr. Klopp, 
confirms the statement just made as to the exhaustion of the ' 
stores of wheat usually kept. 
