two limits stand the large numbers who will buy wheat when it is cheap, but who turn to coarser grains when wheat is dear. So far, then, as regards consumers who are not producers, the position in India is in no way exceptional; their consumption fluctuates in accordance with recognised laws, and the surplus of wheat is not an absolutely fixed quantity, but varies in accordance with changes in price.

But more than half the potential wheat-eating population are concerned in the production of the crop; and their position requires separate consideration. The Indian peasant does not, like the English farmer, buy his bread from a baker; the first principle of his economy is that at each harvest he shall put aside enough grain to feed his family until the next crop is ready. Peasants who are in the hands of the money-lender cannot, of course, completely realise this ideal; but in their case the money-lender (who is also usually a dealer in grain) carries the necessary stock on their behalf and doles it out as required. The well-to-do peasant naturally stocks wheat for his family's use; the smaller man, who cannot afford wheat, stocks the coarser grains which he has grown for that purpose. Having thus provided for the first necessary of life, the peasant has next to find the money that he needs for rent, for clothes, for wages and for miscellaneous expenditure of various kinds. To get this, he sells part of his produce, and it is here that he comes into touch with the market. Often he will sell all that is left after providing a minimum of food, and still have less money than he wants; but, when he has had good crops and prices are high, he will find himself with a margin in hand. He may either sell this margin and hoard the money; or he may sell less grain and add the balance to his household stock, partly to be expended in charity and hospitality, partly to be retained to meet a prospective deficit, and partly (in the case of the poorer peasants) to provide something more than the bare minimum of food required for subsistence.

Now a rise in the price of wheat does not mean the same thing to an entire consuming population constituted in the manner that has been described. Those who are also producers, and in India this means more than half the population under consideration, are either pleased or

indifferent. They are pleased if they have a surplus on hand; they can then either get more money than they expected, or get the money they need by the sale of less wheat. They are indifferent if they have no surplus to sell, as is very commonly the case when the rise in prices takes place some time after harvest. The minority of the population, who do not produce wheat but buy what they want from day to day, of course feel the rise. Some of them have to give up wheat; and their increased demand for the coarser and less nutritious grains lifts the prices of these in turn, so that ordinarily coarse grains move in the same direction as wheat. In any case the vocal classes are loud in their complaints. The middle classes write to the papers; employees come to their masters for a supplement to their wages or salaries; and in the less law-abiding parts of the country more or less organised attacks on grain-dealers' stores are a normal feature of the situation. Thus, when the Government undertakes to control prices, its efforts, in so far as they succeed, do in fact determine the kind and quantity of food of large numbers of people to whom food is at all times the most important and most interesting question in the world.

During last winter the Indian price of wheat rose in harmony with prices all over the world, and very few people in India were benefited. The non-producing consumers naturally suffered, and they did not everywhere submit quietly; producers generally were indifferent because those of them who had secured a surplus out of the inferior harvest of 1914 had already disposed of all they could spare; and the only persons to profit were the comparatively small number of dealers who still had stocks on hand, and the few exceptional peasants who were in the same position. If the export trade had been left free, the approach of the harvest of 1915 would, as usual, have been marked by the appearance of exportbuyers in all the principal centres of production, and by the offer of prices more or less in accord with those prevailing in Europe. These prices would have seemed to the cultivator very high; and it is probable that immediate sales would have been very large, and that the entire surplus of the year, and perhaps quantities in excess of the real surplus, would have been rushed to

the seaports. This would have stereotyped (within limits) the existing range of prices for a year ahead. Nonproducing consumers would have continued to suffer, and some of them would probably have continued to break the law; solvent producers would have benefited enormously by selling the surplus of their excellent crop at unprecedented prices; and similar benefit would have accrued to those money-lenders who retain the profits earned by producers who are not solvent. The most serious danger of the position lay in the possibility of over-exporting; the country might have seen its stocks reduced to a dangerous extent; and then even a slight deficiency in the autumn crops might have meant famine in the ensuing winter.

The nature of the measures taken by the Government to avoid this danger is not apparent to the ordinary producer. As harvest has come on, he has seen the appearance of the usual export-buyers; and probably everything has gone on much as usual in the markets, except that the prices offered have been less than he had hoped, his hopes having been raised by the exceptional prices that prevailed during the winter. Probably some producers at first held back, but the progressive lowering of the prices offered by the buyers on behalf of Government was calculated to produce the desired conviction that higher prices were not to be hoped for; and at the time of writing it appears to be probable that the object aimed at will be secured-that a compromise will be established in the matter of price, and that the surplus of wheat which the country can spare will be exported for the benefit of the Empire with the minimum of disturbance of internal conditions.

These emergency-measures are therefore likely to prove immediately successful. But the fact must not be overlooked that they affect a very large number of human beings in their daily affairs; and consequently the ulterior effects which they will produce cannot be entirely neglected. The lowering of wheat-prices must inevitably react on the prices of other food-grains; more people will be able to eat wheat, and fewer will want to buy barley or millets; consequently every cultivator who has any grain to sell is worse off than he would have been if Government had not interfered.

Government

has in fact transferred arbitrarily a portion of wealth from one class of the population to the others; and the amount so transferred depends on the judgment of the two or three men concerned in fixing the prices offered for export. Their aim, it may be assumed, is to confiscate just so much of the peasants' wealth as will suffice to avoid the danger of distress (and lawlessness) among the rest of the population. The equation is not an easy one to solve; and at best the solution can be only approximate. If the price fixed for wheat is too high (higher, that is, than the theoretically accurate solution), large numbers of poor people will go hungry, and others will be deprived of the nourishing food that should be within their reach; if the price is too low, producers will suffer in pocket though not in stomach. The latter alternative is the more probable; for signs of distress will be carefully watched for, while no intelligence-system can gauge the state of the producer's pocket. To what reactions is this likely to give rise in the immediate future?

There can be little doubt that the prices now being realised, though much higher than would have prevailed in ordinary times, will be a disappointment to the Indian cultivator who has wheat to sell. Expectations had been raised by the high prices prevailing in the winter, and by the flood of rumour and gossip which has supplemented the thin stream of information regarding the war and its effects. The peasants may admit grudgingly that things might have been worse, but they will be disappointed that things are not better. And it is practically certain that the blame for this disappointment will fall mainly on the Government. The fact that Government has not appeared in the up-country markets will afford little protection; to the unlettered peasant its nonappearance makes the case worse. He would understand, and probably he would submit to, direct interference with the markets such as was practised by the Emperor Alá-ud-din and by many rulers of India before and after him. But in his eyes there is something sinister in actions of Government which take place behind the scenes. Probably every buyer of wheat throughout the country invokes the name of the Government when he is beating down the price-'he would pay more if he

dared, but the Government order is that wheat is to be cheap'-and the plain statement of fact will be supported and amplified by the lurid details which the imagination of an oriental market may be trusted to produce. The Indian peasant is at all times credulous; just now he is ready to believe even more than he is told. The incursions of hostile airships were last winter the common talk of Central India, and the country thrilled to the news that the German fleet had anchored in the Jumna off Agra; while the recent disturbances in the Panjab were in part based on the reported arrival of the German army within two days' march of Karachi. In this atmosphere inherent improbability either counts for nothing or is a guarantee of truth; and it is to be feared that both the actions and the motives of Government will be misrepresented in a way that Englishmen can scarcely realise.

The practical result may be twofold. In the first place holders of wheat may decide not to sell; in the second place cultivators may be discouraged from sowing wheat next season. So far as can be judged the withholding of stocks will not take place on such a scale as to produce a very serious effect on the market. The peasants in any case need a certain amount of money; they had not on the whole a successful year in 1914; and, owing to low prices, the cotton-crop, which is important in a large part of the wheat area, brought much less money than usual. The need for money is therefore probably greater than is commonly the case at this season; and, if distrust of the Government increases the strength of the ever-present impulse to hoard, the hoarding is most likely to be done in silver and gold, the commodities recommended by the tradition of the country as the safest resource in times of difficulty and uncertainty. The question of the next crop is more doubtful. The present need for wheat was foreseen in India last September; and, as seed-time approached, cultivators were urged by the authorities in some British provinces and by the rulers of some Native States to Sow wheat in preference to other crops, such as oil-seeds, the need for which was less likely to be urgent. That these recommendations did not fall on deaf ears may be inferred from the figures recently made public of the