Page:Arthur Cotton - The Madras Famine - 1898.djvu/11

 these things are concealed? Again in the Nelloor, Kistnah, and Godavery districts, the produce is not only exported, but it is exported for some distance by the Canals in any quantities at a nominal cost. Just so far as these Canals extend there is no question at all about Carriage. There is not the slightest difficulty in sending any quantity, and the cost is nothing. If they extended through India there would not be the smallest question about Carriage. Have these things no bearing upon the Famine? In these 4 districts, 2 Million Acres are Irrigated, producing 1,200,000 tons of food, sufficient to feed 5 Millions of people for a year. What would be the state of things if the whole of this food were wanting? The concealment of these facts totally falsifies the whole case. In Kurnool alone under the Madras Companies Works 84 Million lbs. of Food were produced last year, with fodder to preserve the lives of all the cattle, while all the surrounding Country is absolutely desert, Tens of Thousands of people and all the cattle dying. Are these things nothing? This tract is in the very centre of the worst part of the famishing districts. The sole cause of this garden in the midst of the desert is that it has been Irrigated; nothing else, and through it runs one Main Line of Canal, 190 Miles long, capable of being traversed by boats of 250 tons. Now nothing can be more certain than that if the suffering districts had been treated in the same way there would have been no Famine, no want of Grain and no question about Carriage. Had this very money which is now being spent in a vain attempt to save the lives of the people, been spent on such works, this whole tract would have been revelling in abundance. And so with Transit, if these Canals had been continued throughout India, all India could have been laid under contribution if needed to supply additional food. All these things have been pressed upon the Authorities times without number in every possible way, but all in vain, and now the only alternative is to conceal them from the public. In the Godavery district there are some 700,000 Acres under Irrigation, producing, at present prices, grain worth 4