Abstract

We have, in common, with the rest of the world, been passing through an unprecedented economic depression for the past two years. Following, as it did, on the heels of post-war years of high prices and apparent prosperity, the effect of the depression seems to have been magnified more than it would have appeared under normal pre-war conditions. No two economists are agreed either as to the real causes for the depression or with regard to its remedy. Some say that it is due to over-production of commodities more than is justified by world demand, some say that its cause is to be traced to reparations and war debts, while others say that it is due to the com- bined effect of world-wide over-mechanisation of the means of pro- duction resulting in unemployment of man and animal labour and the natural increase of world's population. It seems to me that all the above factors either singly or in combination have contributed in varying degrees to the present depression. It is reported that the International Statistical Institute estimates that between the years 1920 and 1928, 125,550,000 had been added to the world's population. The Indian contribution to this increase has been in the neighbour- hood of 25.000.000.

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