Note 63 — Chapter XIX

It is very difficult to form an accurate opinion on this point. Returns seem at first sight very conclusive, but you require a knowledge of facts which the returns do not disclose. For instance, in the Government return quoted in the "Economist" of September 30th, 1893, it would appear that, compared with 1873, there had been an enormous rise in the price of ragi—a millet which is the staple food of the people of Mysore. In the table, the prices of 1873 being taken as equal to 100, the rise from 1876 to 1880 is 209, from 1881 to 1885 the ratio falls to 103, and remains at that till 1890. Then, in 1891, it rises to 138, and in 1892 to 177. From this return the writer in the "Economist" concludes that the purchasing power of the rupee is now about 30 per cent. lower than it was in 1873. But to my mind the rupee price of ragi, judging by the returns and omitting periods of famine and scarcity, has probably only risen 3 per cent. The high price of the 1876-80 period was caused by the great famine, and the price in 1891 is to be accounted for by the partial failure of the ragi crop in that year—the country being on the brink of a famine—and this circumstance of course affected prices in the year following.