The Bureau of Social Affairs of the Municipality of Greater Shanghai has prepared data on the price of rice in Shanghai from 1872 to 1928, which is analized in the Nankai Weekly Statistical Service. Using the year 1926 as a base (100), we find that the index number of 1896 was 30.3. By 1906, this had only risen to 37.2. Ten years later, it was 45.6 but in 1926, it became 100 and in 1927, 92, Since then, it has dropped somewhat, According to the Nankai Servie Previous to 1920, the trond is upward. In 1920, a of 15 points occurred, recent six years it at the high level around 72 ($11 Mex per picul). The jump for 1926 and 1927 dental to the war _calamit that befell the rice-producing areas in southeastern Chi Prices have, of course, risen throughout the world, but China must pay, for her wars, just a8 Europe has paid for her big war, and the cost is most visible in the price of rice, for that represents the most characteristic food of the people of southern and central China. The war however, cannot alone he held accountable for rice prices, for until statistical information becomes available, it will be impossible to know what shar wars, taxes, and sequestrations play in the rise in the cost of food and what part modernization plays. That is, the education of peasants' children, the demand for manufactured rather than handicraft goods, the improvement of means of communication locally, ete. These things we do not know in China and therefore we tend to leap to dangerous conclusions that high prices are due entirely to the, war situation, Again, index numbers tend to mislead because they represent an isolated factor in the situa tion. For instance, one may p more for a commodity; yet price may not be relatively higher. Here, there must be a comparison between the increase in the cost of rice and the increased return for labour. How much more does labour charge for its services and how much more hat the labourer to spend for the commodities he wants or needs. to have. To this question the reply might be obvious but not statistical. In Shanghai, the cost of labour has risen terrifically, but has it risen as high in Wuhu or Changsha or Changchow, whence-come much of the rice for this market? We do not. know except by casual observation, which, on the whole, is useless for a positive conclusion. Here then, is a big job for Mr. D. K. Lieu's Statistical Bureau.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.