TITF: RISE OF PRICES IN INDIA.
[To THE EDITOR or THE " SPECTATOR:1 SIR,—The prevailing industrial unrest has caused a good deal of correspondence on the decreased buying power of money as compared with that of ten years or so ago. Many com- parative budgets have been drawn up and published in various organs, all showing the same rise in prices of foodstuffs and in general cost of living. It may be of some interest to see how this tendency is affecting India, and to consider a little what further results it may lead to.
The cost of living in India has greatly increased during the last few years. Food, wages, rent, all have gone up 30 per cent. at the very least; while the price of ponies has been probably doubled in the last fifteen years ; nor has the recent influx of motor-cars caused any diminution in the price of horse flesh. Meat, in spite of the increase, is still cheaper than in England. Groceries, on the contrary, are very much higher. Dairy produce is about the same, and the general cost of living is higher than at home. In the town in which I live the rent of a fair-sized house is, say, 125 rupees per mensem, i.e., £100 per annum, which in many cases, though it has to be taken by the year, can only be actually tenanted for six months owing to the removal for the hot weather to hill stations of many of the offices, where another house has then to be hired. Even when this is not the case the wives and families of men who remain in the plains have to go to the hills; and all the expenses of travelling, hotels, casual labour, &c., have increased enormously.
The wages of servants in India are very much less in- dividually, of course, than are the wages of English servants, particularly when one takes into consideration that they keep themselves. But these wages, small enough in themselves, come to quite a respectable total—certainly not less than £150 to £250 per annum—when one reflects that an ordinary house- hold may require quite easily anything from fifteen to twenty- five servants to run it. And it is useless to try and cut down the number that "da.strir" (custom) has sanctified. One attempts to do so, and, though the consent of the servants themselves seems to be smilingly given and no protests are raised, soon an invisible wall of silent resistance makes itself felt, and in the end one has to do what every one else has done before —own oneself conquered and put on the extra servants again with as good a grace as one may! The only thing to be said is that Indian servants do somewhat temper the wind to the shorn lamb, and in the households of junior officers cheerfully perform the same work for which they require half as many again in the service of those whom they know to be getting higher pay.
It is a matter of general knowledge that everywhere a very large proportion of men in the Services are in debt to a greater or lesser extent, and that it is impossible for them to go in for sport or the recreations that the life affords with-
out getting into this condition. " Give it up and live within your income !" the stern moralist may say ; but is it very desirable that men should be so obliged P The proverb " All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy " can never be more aptly applied than out here, where the pressure of hard work under abnormal conditions makes some relaxation a matter of necessity to health. I am speaking primarily of the Civil Service, but these remarks will probably apply with even more force to the less well-paid Services.
The life is admittedly a hard one in many ways, involving a long, arduous, and expensive training, continual separation of families, costly journeys, and costly medical attendance (for families); often conditions of strain, bad climate, or isolation. Formerly three great factors lent attraction to an Indian career. First, the opportunities it gave of sport unattain- able at home; secondly, the comfortable pension of £1,000 per annum, though I think that many people do not realize that of this sum two-fifths is made up by compulsory contributions during the service of the recipient, and that, indeed, the most successful men have frequently paid for nearly the whole of their pensions. Now that £1,000 a year has not anything like the same buying power at home that it used to have, and that sport has grown so much more costly that it can often be indulged in only at the expense of getting into debt—which again cripples the ultimate income!—the potency of these appeals is necessarily very much diminished. The third and probably the greatest attraction was the prospect of an adventurous life, with special opportunities of personal dis- tinction. The spread of civilization, the immense improve• ment of communications, and the iron grip of the Pao Britannica have resulted in the substitution in large measure of monotonous grind for varied and interesting occupation.
The Government is not concerned, naturally enough, with the convenience and amelioration or otherwise of the condi- tions of life in India so long as it can command a supply of the best men. But there lies the point that may be worth some consideration. Is the inducement offered enough to insure for much longer the continuance of a supply of men of as high calibre as heretofore, or will it not be increasingly felt that other careers and other countries offer an earlier start, greater chances of success, and at least as pleasant a life to men of enterprise and grit? The men who have just those qualities which are the most desirable for the administration of this country are the very ones who are most likely to be attracted elsewhere under the present state of affairs.
The importance of the Indian Empire has been recently brought home to the British public by the visit of the King.
Emperor. Is it too much to hope that it will be roused to a sense of its responsibility in insisting that the proper class of men are obtained for the government of India, and that sufficiently good prospects of pay and pension are offered to
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