ARUN GHOSH*
Price Movements and Fluctuations in Economic Activity (1860-1947):
A Review of McAlpin s Contribution to CEHI
ONE has been conditioned to treating the Cambridge Economic History series as the fruit of painstaking, scholarly research, even though not necessarily based on reliable interpretation of past events. But times change; and quite clearly standards today are a far cry from those one has been accustomed to in the past. It is particularly disconcerting that the chapter on prices and fluctuations in economic activity during the period of the British Raj in the recent Cambridge Economic History of India comes from some body who appears to be unversed as to either availalable data or past studies on the subject. That Prof McAlpin has at best a fleeting interest in the subject is evident from the Appendix on "General Quality of Data: Sources" at the end of the chapter. McAlpin has not seen any original price data; she admits at the outset that a "photocopy... of this publication (the Index Numbers of Indian Prices) with typed additions for some series running through 1940 was kindly loaned to me by Professor Alan Heston". McAlpin is not even aware that the Prices and wages in India (1873==100) dates back to 1871 and not 1861; and she does not appear to have read the excellent analysis of O'Conor in regard to the available price data and their quality, in the 1886 volume of the "Prices and Wages". Though there is passing reference in the chapter to F J Atkinson, as the originator of the Index Numbers of Indian Prices, the latter's detailed studies1 as to the causation of price changes in India do not get reflected in McAlpin's chapter. Again, while the short bibliography mentions K L Datta's five volume study2 on the causes of the rise in prices (during the period 1890-1912), there is no evidence that McAlpin has really gone through Datta's study. The weighted index of agricultural prices used by McAlpin has been borrowed from N K Thingalaya. However, the latter had prepared an index with 1952-53 as the base year. Of the numerous other books, monographs and articles on Indian price behaviour in the latter half of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century, McAlpin seems to be unaware, since the burden of this knowledge does not, to use a mixed metaphor, contaminate her afpproach or her analysis; McAlpin does not even bother to refute the thrus? of the earlier studies.
* Vice-Chairman, State Planning Board, Government of West Bengal.