In England, one of the features of the trade in the past years had been the movement of prices and it will be noticed in the following table that in several articles the rise has been quite out of proportion to requirements. The table shows the value of a few articles in 1909 and the value of the prices of 1908 :

The Daily Graphic in its issue of Saturday, dated the 8th January, 1910, commenting on the above table, observed that on only four articles, the Englishmen as consumers, had to pay nearly 7 millions net extra owing entirely to the rise in prices.

Let us then turn to France. The following report was submitted by Consul General Mason:"A study of the comparative prices of most ordinary commodities of daily life at Paris, Marseilles, Bordeaux and other leading cities shows a remarkable uniformity between these different points, not only in respect to prices, but in the conditions of supply and demand by which market values are directly influenced. It is found that with the exception of a few articles the cost of the staple commodities has advanced more or less steadily since 1900, and careful Parisian housekeepers, who count

every centime of the daily cost of living, estimate the net aggregate advance at from 10 to 12 per cent.

Following are some of the wholesale prices in Paris. Those for 1900 and those for 1910 :

beef was II cents Wheat was $1.55

In Vienna (Austria) in 1900 and in 1910 it rose to 13 cents. and has risen to $2.69. In Berlin (Germany) beef was 8 cents wholesale in 1900 and is now over 9 cents. Wheat sold at 98.5 cents and it now at $152. In Russia beef retailed for 8 cents per pound in 1900 and is now selling for 9 cents and wheat was 80 cents wholesale and is now at $107, while butter was sold at 20 cents, now sells at 23 cents.

Having taken a very brief survey of some of the states in Europe, we turn to India. It would be useless to quote figures from the Ain-i-Akbari or to refer to the circumstances which led a Governor of Bengal in the fag-end of the Moghal régime to close one of the gates of his capital and forbid re-opening it before rice should be so cheap as he had made it to be. It is, however, an incontrovertible fact that the rise in the prices of all

staple food crops as well as other commodities has been considerable and a marked one. The following tabular statement shows the average number of seers of foodgrains sold per rupee in the quinquennium of 1861-65 with that in 1901-03:

The Blue Book called "The Statement Exhibiting the Moral and Material Progress and Condition" (1908-9) thus observes relating to the rise in prices:-"The rise in the prices of commodities in India during recent years has been the subject of much discussion." It then gives a table, which we reproduce below and makes the following pertinent remark: "Where wagerates are more or less customary, or where incomes are more or less fixed, as in the case of pensioners, public and private employees, and the professional classes, the increased cost of living is a serious matter."*

*The italics are ours. It is, of course, satisfactory to note that Government grants grain allowances to many of its officers and thereby gives relief to a number of people.

The table has been compiled from Government returns showing the index numbers of the prices of (a) 11 articles imported; (b) 28 articles consumed in India or exported; (c) food grains. The prices under (a) and (b) are wholesale and under (c) retail. The index number of each year represents a simple average of the separate price ratios of the selected articles. In showing the variations, the prices of 1873 are taken as 100.

To what cause or causes is this rise due? We can classify the causes under two headings only. First, whether the present supply is equal to the demand and, secondly, whether the monetary policy or, rather, the currency policy of the Government has anything to do with the rise in prices?

At the outset we may say that the present supply is not equal to the present demand and this can be ascribed to four causes

I. Law of diminishing return.

2. Increase of population.

3. Areas formerly under rice are now under nonfood crops.

4 Export.

We shall take the points one by one.

The first is the Law of Diminishing Return. India is an essentially agricultural country and here the additional doses of labour and capital yield a less proportion. As Mr. Gokhale observed in his Budget speech of 1906, "There is ample evidence to show that over the greater part of India-especially in the older provinces-the agricultural industry is in a state of deep depression. The exhaustion of the soil is fast proceeding, the cropping is becoming more and more inferior and the crop yield per acre, already the lowest in the world, is declining still further." The yield being less than what it was, the supply falls short of the demand and hence, necessarily, there is the rise in prices. This is a cause attributable to nature and no one has any hand in it.

The second cause is the increase of population. With the increase of population there is an increase of demand for food supplies. The increase of population has grown by 53 per cent. since 1872. The Hon'ble Mr. E. A. Gait, I.C.S., C.I.E., Census Commissioner for India, in a paper "The Indian Census" submitted to the Royal Society of Arts (published in its Journal Vol. LX., No. 3097, dated 29th March 1912) thus opined: "The population has grown by 53 per cent. since 1872. Part of this increase, however, is due to the inclusion of new areas and part to the greater accuracy of recent enumeration." The following statement shows, as far as can now be ascertained, how far it is attributable to these causes, and what the