"Famine connotes not so much a scarcity or entire absence of food as high prices and a lack of employment in the affected areas.... The capital in the hands of the country traders has proved insufficient to finance the ordinary movements of crops and the seasonal calls for accommodations from the main financial centers are constantly increasing. This lack of available capital is one cause of the high rates that the ryot has to pay for the ready money which he needs to buy seed and to meet the expenses of cultivation. On the other hand, money is largely invested in the purchase of landed property, the price of which has risen to very high figures in many parts of the country.... But the no less urgent necessity of relieving the ryot from the enormous load of debt with which he has been burdened by the dearness of agricultural capital, the necessity of meeting periodic demands for rent and his social habits, has hitherto been met only to a very small extent by co-operative organization. The farmer, owing partly to poverty and partly to the extreme sub-division of the land, is very often a producer on so small a scale that it is practically impossible for him to take his crops to the larger markets where he can sell at current rates to the agents of the bigger firms.... A better market system, co-operative selling, and education are the promising remedies." Coming to the industrial centers of the country apart from the rural areas, the report says: "A characteristic feature of organised industry and commerce in all the chief Indian centers is the presence of large agency firms which, except in the case of Bombay, are mainly European. In addition to participating in the export and import trade, they finance and manage industrial ventures all over the country, and often have several branches in the large towns. The importance of these agency houses may be gauged by the fact that they are in control of the majority of the cotton, jute and other mills as well as of the tea gardens and the coal mines." The general remarks about the industrial deficiency of the country will be better understood from the following extracts: