or on that of the aratdar or the baler. The aratdar is merely a financier who takes interest at the rate of four annas per maund of jute on the money he advances. The margins of the various middlemen are estimated as from two to six annas per maund of jute for the faria according to the season, four annas to one rupee for the bepari and four annas for the aratdar. The margin of the baling firms, from which they have to meet the cost of handling and storing as well as that of freight to Calcutta and insurance, is placed at Rs. 1-6. The difference between the price received by the cultivator and the price paid by the jute mill or the exporter is thus estimated at from Rs. 2 to Rs. 2-8 per maund which represents twenty per cent of the total price. THE MARKETING OF RICE IN BURMA. 325. In Burma, unhusked rice is usually purchased from the threshing floor by the local trader who is known as a jungle broker. He is seldom a man of means and is merely an agent of local dealers residing in the surrounding markets and in milling centres. His commission on purchases varies from Re. 1 to Rs. 2 on each 100 baskets delivered. He is in most cases better informed than the seller as to the trend of the market but the ruling price is usually well known in the village, information obtained from the Press or by telegraphic advice from Rangoon being passed on from cultivator to cultivator. When the price is settled, difficulties arise over the size of the basket to be used for measurement, the point at issue being whether the broker's or the village basket should be used for this purpose. Carting or transport has next to be arranged for. The cost of this is naturally included in the price fixed. The cultivator may or may not agree to cart to the nearest point of shipment at a recognised rate, which varies from eight annas to one rupee per ton mile according to the supply of carts available and the urgency of moving the purchase. The jungle broker delivers the unhusked rice to his principal usually at some local railway siding or river station. The principal may either store it for a rise in the market, send it to the local rice mill to be husked or forward it to a large rice mill at Rangoon. If the second of these methods is adopted, the unhusked rice is either milled straight or first parboiled. The smaller miller is in a position to pay a better price for his produce than the larger one as he buys a more uniform sample, and, therefore, gets a better outturn from it and he has not to pay for the transport of husk. His outturn is sent to brokers or large shippers in Rangoon. The balance of the crop which is not handled by the small miller is dealt with by the large millers in the ports of Rangoon, Akyab, Bassein and Moulmein, who receive it by rail or river. It is bought on a weight-cum-volume basis and it is in this respect that most disputes arise. The volume recognised is a nine-gallon basket the weight of which must be forty-six pounds. A bonus is paid for any weight in excess of this and a deduction is made for any weight below it. Collusion between the weigher, the broker and the tally clerk, however, often results in the seller being deprived of the bonus to which he is entitled. We were informed that this method of sale is one of the most important defects in the system of marketing in Burma. Another great defect is the mixing of different MO Y 286-254 varieties of unhusked rice by the small brokers and adulteration by adding winnowings. INDEBTEDNESS IN OF MARKETS. 326. The illustrations we have given above show what is abundantly clear from all the evidence we received on the point, RELATION TO THE USE namely, that marketing conditions vary greatly from province to province, and in respect of different products in the same province. None the less, in spite of the diversity of the systems under which agricultural produce is marketed in different parts of India, there are certain broad generalisations which can be made for India as a whole. It has, we think, been established that, where the cultivator is in a position to dispose of his produce in a market, however limited its scope and badly organised its character, he obtains a much better price for it, even when the cost of transport is taken into consideration, than when he disposes of it in his own village. He may be compelled so to dispose of it because communications with the nearest market are not satisfactory or because he has no cattle and carts of his own by which to transport it, but there can be no doubt that it must often be his indebtedness which compels him to resort to the village trader and to accept the terms dictated by the latter. The full benefits of improvements in market organisation cannot therefore reach the mass of cultivators unless their financial position is such that they can act as free agents and market their produce where they please. With this aspect of the problem we deal in our chapter on the Finance of Agriculture, paragraph 361. Interesting light is thrown upon it as the result of enquiries which were made in 1923 by the Punjab Communications Board which elicited that in some districts of the province, of which Karnal is one, the bulk of the crop was sold to the village trader. In the adjacent district of Rohtak, where communications are better than they are in Karnal and the co-operative movement has made greater progress, the proportion fell to one-half. In the prosperous Lyallpur district with its excellent communications and numerous mandis, the whole of the surplus produce was disposed of in the market centres. THE IMPORTANCE OF PROPERLY NISED MARKETS. ORGA 327. If, as we have held in the preceding paragraph, it is established that the cultivator obtains a much better price for his produce when he disposes of it in a market than when he sells it in his village, the importance to him of properly organised markets needs no emphasis. The importance of such markets lies not only in the functions they fulfil but in their reactions upon production. Well regulated markets create in the mind of the cultivator a feeling of confidence and of receiving fair play and this is the mood in which he is most ready to accept new ideas and to strive to improve his agricultural practice. Unless the cultivator can be certain of securing adequate value for the quality and purity of his produce, the effort required for an improvement in these will not be forthcoming. The value of the educative effect of well regulated markets on the producer can hardly be exaggerated but it has yet to be recognised in India. From all provinces we received complaints of the disabilities under which the cultivator labours in selling his produce in markets at present organised. It was stated that scales and weights as and measures were manipulated against him, a practice which is often rendered easier by the absence of standardised weights and measures and of any system of regular inspection. Deductions which fall entirely on him but against which he has no effective means of protest are made in most markets for religious and charitable purposes and for other objects. Large "samples "of his produce are taken for which he is not paid even when no sale is effected. Bargains between the agent who acts for him and the one who negotiates for the purchaser are made secretly under a cloth and he remains in ignorance of what is happening. The broker whom he is compelled to employ in the larger markets is more inclined to favour the purchaser with whom he is brought into daily contact than the seller whom he only sees very occasionally. This inclination to favour the buyer becomes more pronounced when, as not infrequently happens, he acts for both parties. THE BERAR MARKET SYSTEM AND BOMBAY LEGISLATION. THE 328. The disabilities described in the preceding paragraph which undoubtedly exist in almost every unregulated market in greater or less degree, and are not entirely absent from the regulated markets of Berar, can only be removed by the establishment of properly regulated markets and we hold that the establishment of such markets would confer an immense boon on the cultivating classes of India. It must indeed, in our view, form an essential part of any ordered plan of agricultural development in this country, for only in this way can the work of the agricultural departments be brought to full fruition. The markets of Berar are regulated under the provisions of the Cotton and Grain Markets Law. Markets of the character we have in view will also be established in Bombay when the Act to which we have referred above is brought into operation. The value to the cultivator of the markets in Berar has been brought out in striking fashion by the enquiry into the marketing of agricultural produce in that tract which has recently been conducted by the Indian Central Cotton Committee. It was found that no less than 68 per cent of the cotton sold in that province was sold in these markets. In the neighbouring district of East Khandesh in the Bombay Presidency, only 85 per cent of the cotton sold was brought into the larger markets. A brief description of the Berar system and of the improvements which the Bombay legislation seeks to graft on it is, therefore, a necessary preliminary to the recommendations we have to make on this important subject. Although the law under which the Berar markets have been constituted is known as the Cotton and Grain Markets Law, the markets are in actual practice used almost exclusively for cotton. Under the provisions of the law, markets and bazaars may be notified and committees may be appointed to manage them. Rules may be made to regulate the constitution and powers of the managing committees, the levy, collection and disposal of fees, the conditions under which licenses may be issued to brokers, weighmen and measurers, the places for weighment and measuring, the scales, weights and measures to be used and their inspection, verification and correction, and so on. Unauthorised markets and bazaars may be prohibited. Detailed rules on these points were promulgated in a notification issued in 1898. The main criticism which has been brought against the Berar system is that the market committees are unwilling to take energetic action to secure fair trading owing to the fact that the majority of their members are general commission agents or large buyers who do not wish to offend the class to which they belong or on which they are very closely dependent for a successful season's trade. This defect is inherent in the constitution of the committee as the rules lay down that no person is eligible for appointment to the committee who has not resided within the limits or within five miles from the limits of the town in which the market is situated for at least three months prior to the date on which the list of persons eligible for appointment to the committee is prepared. This means in practice that members of the cultivating classes in the area served by the market are excluded from the committee and that their very substantial interests in the proper management of the market receive no recognition. The Bombay legislation seeks to remove their disabilities in this respect by providing that they shall elect not less than half the members of the market committee, of whom there will be not less than twelve or more than sixteen. Of the remainder, one will be a member nominated by the local Government, one will be elected by the district local board of the district in which the market is situated. one by the municipality, if it is located within municipal limits, and the others by the traders in the market. The Bombay legislation provides that no trade allowance other than an allowance prescribed by rules or by laws made under it shall be made or received by any person in any transaction in the market. This is an advance on the Berar legislation which, although it forbids the taking of trade allowances, does not define them. Both laws provide that the market committee may employ such officers and servants as may be necessary for the management of the market. This is an important provision in view of the complaints which have been made of the manner in which the cultivator is cheated in the matter of weighment. The Bombay legislation, as does that of Berar, prohibits the establishment of unauthorised markets within a prescribed distance of markets established by law. Under the Berar law, any surplus of market funds remaining at the end of the financial year is automatically transferred to the district board or munici pal committee in whose area the market is situated. Under the Bombay legislation, it can be expended only on certain purposes connected with the market which are defined in the Act. THE RESTRICTION OF MARKETS 329. We entirely approve the principle underlying the Berar system of regulated markets and of the very desirable improvements in that system which will be effected by the Bombay legislation, and we recommend that similar markets should be established in other provinces. Such criticisms as we shall have to offer are, in the main, confined to points of detail. The Berar markets are, however, as we have seen, confined almost exclusively to transactions in cotton and the Bombay legislation definitely limits them to that product. The first question which, therefore, arises for consideration is the necessity for this restriction. The object of the Bombay legislation as given in the "Statement of Objects and Reasons is to secure to the cultivator better prices, fairer weighment and freedom from illegal deductions. If the establishment of regulated markets can secure this in respect of cotton, it can do so equally well in respect of other products such as grain and oil-seeds. It appears desirable to point out that, although the primary object of properly regulated markets may be the protection of the cultivator, they have also their uses from the point of view of the purchaser and the public. The cultivator cannot be held guiltless of malpractices. Tricks of the trade such as the adulteration and mixing of produce are not practised only by the middlemen nor are they by any means confined to cotton. There is no measure more calculated to prevent them, in so far as they are due to the seller, than the establishment of properly regulated markets and the buyer is much more likely to obtain satisfactory quality in such markets than by any other method of purchase. We, therefore, recommend that the system of regulated markets should be extended to products other than cotton. 330. The next THE NECESSITY FOR SPECIAL LEGISLATION. question which arises is whether regulated markets should be established under ad hoc legislation or under by-laws framed under the Municipalities Act or the District Boards Act of the province concerned. The latter procedure is adopted in the Central Provinces proper, as distinct from Berar. Under section 105 of the Central Provinces Municipal Act of 1903, municipal authorities have power to frame by-laws which are subject to confirmation by the local Government, for the inspection and regulation of markets and for the charge of fees for the use of buildings and places therein. It does not, however, appear that the markets established under these provisions are as effectively regulated as they are in Berar and we are of opinion that satisfactory regulation can only be secured by provincial legislation and rules framed thereunder. If the management of regulated markets is left to municipal councils or district boards on which vested interests are often strongly represented and on which pressure can be brought to bear in various ways, it is very doubtful if the interests of all the parties directly concerned, more especially those of the grower, will be adequately safeguarded. Municipal councils, it is true, generally have their market committees to look after municipal markets but, as a rule, the interests of the growers are not represented on them. There is a danger that the markets will be regarded merely as a source of revenue to the municipality or district board concerned and that the objects with which they have been established will be largely frustrated. There is a further danger that the site selected for the market may not be the most suitable. A municipal council will naturally wish to have the market situated within municipal limits, whereas a site outside the town may often be more convenient, having regard to communications by road and rail. We are, therefore, of opinion that regulated markets should only be established under provincial legislation. We would add that it is difficult to |