Show FAMINE IN INDIA 1 pressure sure or of the people on the soil and the labor problem the scarcity in northern india is assuming a threatening aspect the season has not sufficiently advanced to warrant an estimate of the dimensions to which the distress may attain nor is it yet possible to distinguish between alarmist rumors and well founded f forecasts ore casts A calculation brought by the last mail puts the probable cost of relief in four districts alone of the northwest at rupees and the expenditure required to deal with the whole threatened area at such calculations lie for the moment beyond the range of criticism but they make us realize what for some years we have been allowed to forget that widespread scarcity forms a contingency with which the indian government must constantly prepare to reckon it is exactly 30 3 years ago since the bengal famine of 1866 rudely awakened tha british conscience to the darker side of our progress in india that progress whether gauged by the increase of the people or the educational influences which have been brought to bear upon them is one of the most wonderful facts in the history of the world during the present century but it is a triumph of british administration for which the indian peasant has at intervals to pay a terrible price we have removed the old asiatic check upon the population by more rapid stages than we have hate created the modern modem european safeguards against the results of its accelerated growth the ancient checks upon the indian population were nvere the sword pestilence and famine the sword has ceased out of the land pestilence is encountered by a vast system of medical aid famine is mitigated by an equally vast system of relief but as famine in the appalling sense of the word has become rarer partial scarcities scar cities has grown more frequent throughout large areas of india the pressure of the people on the soil is so intense that even a partial failure of the crops means severe suffering 10 millions and serious failure produces a scarcity which taxes all the resources of the government to prevent it deepening into famine london times time |