68 SOCIAL SCIENTIST rates.4The mills which were laid out for colour work thereby made very big profits from the manufacture of coloured goods.5 The high prices of yarn and dyes, however, had an adverse effect on the local handloom industry which received a temporary setback during the war.6 The shortage of supplies from England gradually led to a reduction of stocks and prices advanced very rapidly. The local mills experienced some level of prosperity though not to the same extent as Bombay. The plague epidemics of these years implied a continual labour shortage for the mills as a result of the emigration of the urban population. The prices rose due to war shortages and the failure of crops in the Presidency. Owing to the high prices of commodities there was a fear of growing restlessness among the workers. The millowners devised an unusual method of tackling this problem. They started providing grain to the workers at a fixed price from the beginning of 1918.7 Jowari, the staple food grain of the district, was sold to the workers each month at a fixed rate of 6 seers to the rupee. This provision was made irrespective of the market price. The prevailing market rate was as high as 1.75 seers to the rupee. Besides this, the mills also increased the pay commensurate with the increase in prices. The Collector of Sholapur, A.H.A. Simcox, noted in 1918: Though there has been an abnormal rise in the prices of all commodities during the year, no signs of distress were noticed among the labouring classes as the rate of wages ruled higher than before. This may be said to be chiefly due to the working of the mills in Sholapur and Barsi, which could offer higher wages. The liberal concessions in the form of the supply of grain to their hands at half the market price attracted the labouring class to the mills which are at present finding the supply of labour exceeding their requirements.8 The remark of the Collector clearly indicates that this method adopted by the Sholapur millowners ensured a steady flow of labour into the mills and prevented labour unrest.9 It also helped to curb absenteeism as the grain allowance was conditional upon attendance for twenty-six days a month.10 The location of Sholapur in the Deccan famine zone, although being a serious impediment to the millowners on account of scarcity of water, was also a point in their favour. The continuing years of scarcity would in effect compel the agriculturists to abandon their lands in search of jobs in the mills. The biographer of Narottam Morarji Gokuldas, started the Sholapur Spinning and Weaving Mill