INDIAN FAMINES, 1770-1866. 541 years, the canal supply must likewise fail after no long interval. Waterworks on a scale adequate to guarantee the whole of India from drought not only exceed the possibilities of finance; they are also beyond the reach of engineering skill. famines, The first great famine of which we have any trustworthy Summary record is that which devastated the lower valley of the Ganges of Indian in 1769-70. One-third of the population of Bengal is credibly 1770-1878. reported to have perished. The previous season had been bad; and, as not uncommonly happens, the break-up of the 1769–70. drought was accompanied by disastrous floods. Beyond the importation into Calcutta and Murshidábád of a few thousand hundredweights of rice from the Districts of Bákarganj and Chittagong, it does not appear that any public measures for relief were taken or proposed.1 The next great famine was that which afflicted the Karnátik Famines of from 1780 to 1783, and has been immortalized by the genius 1780-83; of Burke. It arose primarily from the ravages of Haidar Ali's army. A public subscription was organized by the Madras Government, from which sprang the 'Monegar Choultry,' a permanent Madras institution for the relief of the native poor. In 1783-84, Hindustán Proper suffered from a prolonged drought, which stopped short at the frontier of British territory. Warren Hastings, then Governor-General, advocated the construction of enormous granaries, to be opened only in times of necessity. One of these granaries or golás, stands to the present day in the city of Patná, but it was never used until the scarcity of 1874. In 1790-92, Madras was again the scene of a two- 1790-92; years' famine, which is memorable as being the first occasion on which the starving people were employed by Government on relief works. Famines again occurred in Southern India in 1802-04, 1807, 1812, 1824, 1833, 1854, and 1866. A terrible dearth in 1838 caused great mortality in the North- 1838. Western Provinces. But so little was done by the State in these calamities, that Famines few administrative lessons can be learned from them. In of 1861 1860-61, however, a serious attempt was made to alleviate an exceptional distress in the North-Western Provinces. About half a million persons are estimated to have been relieved, at an expenditure by Government of about three-quarters of a 1 A full account of the famine of 1769-70 is given in Hunter's Annals of Rural Bengal, pp. 19-55 (5th ed.). The official record of this and the subsequent famines will be found in the Report of the Indian Famine Commission, presented to Parliament 1880, part i. paras. 62-84. and of 1866. Famine of million sterling. Again, in 1865-66, which will ever be known. as the year of the Orissa famine, the Government attempted to organize relief works and to distribute charitable funds. But on neither of these occasions can it be said that its efforts were successful. In Orissa, especially, the admitted loss of one-fourth of the population proves the danger to which an isolated Province is exposed. The people of Orissa died because they had no surplus stocks of grain of their own; and because importation, on an adequate scale, was physically impossible by sea or land. Passing over the prolonged drought of 1868-70 in the 1873-74 North-Western Provinces and Rájputána, we come to the Behar scarcity of 1873-74, which first attracted the interest of England. Warned by the failure of the rains, and watched and stimulated by the excited sympathy of the public in England, the Government carried out a costly but comprehensive scheme of relief. By the expenditure of 6 millions sterling, and the importation of 1 million tons of rice, all loss of life was prevented. The comparatively small area of distress, and the facilities of communication by rail and river, allowed of the accomplishment of this feat, which remains unparalleled in the annals of Indian famine. Famine of I The famine of 1876-78 is the widest spread and the most 1876-78. prolonged that India has experienced. The drought commenced in Mysore by the failure of the monsoon in 1875; and the fear of distress in the North-Western Provinces did not pass away until 1879. But it will be known in history as the great famine of Southern India. Over the entire Deccan, from Poona to Bangalore, the south-west monsoon failed to bring its usual rainfall in the summer of 1876. In Failure of the autumn of the same year, the north-east monsoon proved rain, 1876. deficient in the south-eastern Districts of the Madras Presi dency. The main food crop perished throughout an immense tract of country; and, as the harvest of 1875 had also been short, prices rapidly rose to famine rates. In November 1876, starvation was already at work, and Government adopted measures to keep the people alive. The next eighteen months, until the middle of 1878, were devoted to one long Failure of campaign against famine. The summer monsoon of 1877 rain, 1877. proved a failure; some relief was brought in October of that year by the autumn monsoon; but all anxiety was not removed until the arrival of a normal rainfall in June 1878. Meanwhile the drought had reached Northern India, where it found the stocks of grain already drained to meet the famine Northern in the south. Bengal, Assam, and Burma were the only Scarcity in Provinces which escaped in that disastrous year. The North- India, Western Provinces, the Punjab, Rájputána, and the Central 1877-78. Provinces suffered from drought throughout the summer of 1877, and, from its consequences, far into the following year. When once famine gets ahead of relief operations, the flood Famine in of distress bursts its embankments, and the people simply perish. Starvation and the long attendant train of faminediseases sweep away their hundreds of thousands. In 1876-78, the importation of grain was left free, and within twelve months 268,000 tons were brought by land, and 166,000 tons by sea, into the distressed Districts of Southern India. the South. ture, The total expenditure of Government upon famine relief Famine in 1876-78 may be estimated at 11 millions sterling, not expendiincluding the indirect loss of revenue, nor the amount debited 1876-78. against the State of Mysore. For this large sum of money there is but little to show in the shape of works constructed. The largest number of persons in receipt of relief at one time in Madras was 2,591,900 in September 1877; of these only 634,581 were nominally employed on works, while the rest were gratuitously fed. From cholera alone, the deaths were Cholera. returned at 357,430 for Madras, 58,648 for Mysore, and 57,252 for Bombay. Dr. Cornish, the Sanitary Commissioner of Madras, well illustrated the effects of the famine by the returns of births and deaths over a series of years. In 1876, when famine, with its companion cholera, was already beginning to be felt, the births registered in Madras numbered 632,113, and the deaths 680,381. In 1877, the Decrease year of famine, the births fell to 477,447, while the deaths of birthrose to 1,556,312. In 1878, the results of the famine showed 1877-78. themselves by a still further reduction of the births to 348,346, and by the still high number of 810,921 deaths. In 1879 the births recovered to 476,307, still below the average, and the deaths diminished to 548,158. These figures are only approximate, but they serve to show how long the results of famine are to be traced in the vital statistics of a people. rate, from With regard to the deaths, the Famine Commissioners thus Total report: 'It has been estimated, and in our opinion on sub- deaths stantial grounds, that the mortality which occurred in the famine of Provinces under British administration during the period of 1876-78. famine and drought extending over the years 1877 and 1878 amounted, on a population of 197 millions, to 5 millions in excess of the deaths that would have occurred had the seasons been ordinarily healthy; and the statistical returns have made Famine a weak check on population. Famine of 1876-78 sum marized. certain what has long been suspected, that starvation and distress greatly check the fecundity of the population. It is probable that from this cause the number of births during the same period has been lessened by 2 millions; the total reduction of the population would thus amount to about 7 millions. Assuming the ordinary death-roll, taken at the rate of 35 per thousand, on 190 millions of people, the abnormal mortality of the famine period may be regarded as having increased the total death-rate by about 40 per cent.' But when estimated over a period of years, the effect of famine as a check upon the population is small. The Famine Commissioners calculate that, taking the famines of the past thirty years, as to which alone an estimate of any value can be made, the abnormal deaths caused by famine and its diseases have been less than 2 per thousand of the Indian population per annum. As a matter of fact, cultivation quickly extended after the famine of 1877-78, and there were in Bombay and Madras 120,000 more acres under tillage shortly after the long protracted scarcity than before it. The famine of 1876-78 affected, directly, a population of 58 million persons, and an area of 257,300 square miles. The average number daily employed by the State on relief works was 877,024. The average number of persons daily in receipt of gratuitous State relief was 446,641, besides private charities. Land revenue was remitted to close on 2 millions sterling. The famine lasted from 12 months in the North-Western Provinces, to 22 months in Madras. Its total cost, including both outlay and loss of revenue, is officially returned at £11,194,320. A Commission was appointed to inquire into the causes of famine in India, and the means of averting or alleviating those calamities. Its report, presented to both Houses of Parliament in 1880, is replete with carefully collated facts regarding the past, and with wise suggestions for the future. During the seven years which have elapsed since the great calamity of 1878, up to the time when these pages went to the press (June 1885), there has been no scarcity in India sufficiently intense or widespread to deserve the name of famine. Almost every season has brought a partial failure of the rains in one Province or another. But improved means of communication, and prompt measures for dealing with the distress, have prevented local scarcity from developing in any year into general famine. 1 Report of the Indian Famine Commission, part i. p. 24 (1880). [ 545 ] CHAPTER XVIII. MEANS OF COMMUNICATION. communi THE means of communication in India may be classified Internal under four headings—(1) railways, (2) roads, (3) rivers, and cations. (4) canals. The existing system of railway communication in India Indian dates from the administration of Lord Dalhousie. The first railways. Indian line of rail was projected in 1843 by Sir Macdonald Their history, Stephenson, who was afterwards active in forming the East 1843-71. Indian Railway Company. But this scheme was blighted by the financial panic that followed soon afterwards in England. Bombay, the city which has most benefited by railway enterprise, saw the first sod turned in 1850, and the first line of a few miles opened as far as Thána (Tanna) in 1853. The elaborate minute, drawn up by Lord Dalhousie in the latter year, substantially represents the railway map of India at the present day, although filled in by Lord Mayo's extensions of 1869 and by subsequent lines. Lord Dalhousie's scheme consisted of well-chosen trunk Lord Dalhousie's lines, traversing the length and breadth of the peninsula, trunk lines, and connecting all the great cities and military cantonments. 1853. These trunk lines were to be constructed by private companies, to whom Government should guarantee a minimum of 5 per cent. interest on their capital expended, and from whom it should demand in return a certain measure of subordination. The system thus sketched out was promptly carried into execution, and by 1871 Bombay was put into direct railway communication with the sister Presidencies of Calcutta and Madras. The task remaining for Lord Mayo in 1870 was the Lord development of traffic by means of feeders, which should tap branch the districts of production, and thus open up the entire lines, 1870. country. This task he initiated by the construction of minor State lines on a narrower gauge, and therefore at a cheaper rate, than the existing guaranteed railways. VOL. VI. 2 M Mayo's |