“The distress caused by high prices has undoubtedly affected all classes, and has pressed with great severity on the urban populations, and on all who are dependent on small fixed incomes. But the more painful conditions which we associate with widespread famine in India—the emaciation, the aimless wandering, the disruption of social ties, and the increase of crime—are as yet so rare and exceptional as to be scarcely noticeable. The energy and determination with which the people have themselves faced the calamity have been observed on all hands, and we may reasonably hope that if the coming season is favourable the progress of the country will resume its normal course, without any such check as a famine on a similar scale would have caused in bygone times.”[57] That sounds fairly simple, and, of course, its hopefulness was justified; but the whole question of the famine brought one up short against problems that may be common to all countries, but are perhaps more difficult in India, because under our rule the economic stages are becoming mixed together. What Mr. Baker, for instance, says about the pressure upon urban populations and small fixed incomes owing to the famine is true; but then the pressure appears to be permanent, famine or no famine. The rise in price of ordinary provisions seems to be continuous and general. I heard the same complaint in the Deccan, in Eastern Bengal, Calcutta, Benares, Allahabad, Delhi, and Lahore. Within twenty years wages may have doubled, but the cost of common food has quadrupled. In Bengal, for example, Mr. Chunder Nath Bose, Fellow of the Calcutta University, who knew the prices as a boy, says they have gone up fourfold or even tenfold for the staples of Bengal diet, such as rice, wheat, potatoes, brinjal, dal, fish, and, what is worst, for milk and ghi (clarified butter).[58] Many explanations were given me by English and Indian alike—the export of grain, the growth of jute, the fixing of the rupee, the increased circulation of rupees before 1893, and the transition from payment in kind to payment in cash. Some of these explanations are contradictory, and all of them have been vehemently contradicted. But as to the result, there appeared to be no doubt: life is becoming harder for all working people, especially for all workers on fixed incomes, and the only people who do not notice the increasing burden are the few with “rapidly expanding business” and those who could not possibly eat up to their incomes if they tried.