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M. D. Morris re-opened the debate on late nineteenth-century Indian economic history with a brace of powerful, though conjectural, revisionist articles in 1963 and 1966. He questioned the then prevailing orthodoxy which viewed the late nineteenth century as a period of increasing population pressure on the land (exacerbated by the atrophy of handicraft production), of holding fragmentation, declining per capita food availability, and inimical commercialization of agriculture. This interpretation had seen the position of a narrow mercantile and creditor elite improving, but the position of the mass of the rural population deteriorating, as evidenced by the terrible famines of 1876–80 and 1896–1900. Morris, influenced by D. Kumar's findings, contended that pressure on the soil did not increase excessively; that the influx of imported cloths merely skimmed off the broader increase in textile demand; and that agricultural output per capita increased as a result of extensions to the cropped area, political peace, growing regional specialization, and the increased sowing of valuable, high yielding cash crops.

A paper by the Deputy Chairman of the State Commission on Foreign Economic Relations, USSR Council of Ministers, details recent economic reforms in the foreign trade sector. Emphasis is placed on direct business relations between Soviet enterprises and their foreign counterparts, and on joint ventures with CMEA partners as well as firms in Western and developing countries. (Abstract amended)

Ending its 27-year stranglehold on proposals for federal pure food and drug legislation, Congress passed the Pure Food and Drug Act and its companion bill, the Meat Inspection Act, on June 30, 1906. An unprecedented convergence of consumer, scientific, and industrial support in 1906 prompted such action; most industries even planned for it, hoping regulation would restore the competitiveness of their products on weak foreign and domestic markets. The ways in which these interests converged, and the reasons therefore, suggest a change in their relationships to each other and with the federal government as America headed into the twentieth century.