Page:Gazetteer of the province of Oudh ... (IA cu31924073057345).pdf/29

 HAR 21 grain dealers at prices actually exceeding the rates at which the wealthy purchase wheat. A similar return quoted in the Etáwah Settlement Report is as follows, the prices being in sers per rupee:- 1840 -50, 1850-60. 1860-70. Wheat 315 28 24 Gram U. 9 .. 444 39 21 Bájra Op. 60 26 Gur 123 13 100 I am not disposed to place implicit confidence in this return. There is always a danger that in one year the prices are those of harvest, in another those of seed time. It can hardly be, for instance, that in 1863 wheat was one maund per rupee, and bájra thirty sers--one quarter dearer. But the broad fact remains borne out by this return that the food of the poor is increasing in price with greater rapidity than the food of the rich. The average harvest prices during the last two years arc in sers per rupee :- Wheat. Barley. Rice. Gram May, 1872. 23.9 36'5 9.3 30° 1873 .. 16.6 212 12 2 242 >> Und According to this return the prices of wheat, &c., in the years of scarcity were in sers per rupee : Wheat, Bájra Gram. 1837 + 15 16 1861 20 38 100 23 1865 25 22 25 1869 17 22 NE. 20 But this matter is referred to elsewhere in detail. Bájra was certainly Oudh Administration not to be had at 38 sers the rupee during any consi- Report for 1869, p. 124. derable portion of the year 1868, and in September, 1869, bájra was at 9 sers for the rupee; but it is strange how this could be if arhar and Indian-corn were at 22 sers.