Page:Indian Journal of Economics Volume 2.djvu/428

410 i?t . J. E . O ' B YR N E Up to the end of 1917 the price levels when the price relation was at 100 were as below: Year or month Prloe level 1908 1?8 1909 lB 1918-14 1?4 1916 126 March 1917 126 December let 1917 127 Average From this it would appear that there general rise in the prices of food grains 1899 and 1901 of 18 per cent and in 1906 to 81 per cent. table is that general rise in the province up to December, and 1915 ruled high, but that scarcity, as the area under food vince in 191?-14 w?s ?bout 4 was it between 1907 of The remarkable feature of the latter in .spite of the war there was no the level of prices of food grains in 1917. Prices in 1914 was owing to actual grains in the pro- million acres below average, and the province, normally an exporting one, was forced to make ? net import from other pro- vinees of over ?00,000 tons of food grains in 1914-15. The above argument is open to the objection that the price relation may variation, in that the greater preference for with gram and barley. be undergoing people may be wheat and rice The fact that &8 the lation was lower in 1904 than in 1894 again in 1911 appears to bear out this point of view. This accompanied food grains lowering in its a process of developing a compared price re- and lower wheat, gram and barley in 1894 and the exports of 1904. that the compsrs- in the price relation was however each case by a greater surplus of shown by export. The exports of 1904 exceeded those of 1912 exceeded those of Secondly, it may be argued