Page:Arthur Cotton - The Madras Famine - 1898.djvu/18

 Saturday Review, The Daily Telegraph, to try and bring them before the public with reference to this terrible calamity, and all these papers have refused to insert them. I am glad to be able to say however that this is not universally the case, but that there are two that redeem the whole press from this reproach. These are the “Illustrated News,” which has inserted a most noble letter worthy of the noble writer, Miss Nightingale, and the other is the “Iron Exchange,” which has admitted letters from myself. I suppose nothing short of the force of this hurricane of calamity would have overcome and swept away the Miasmata that have settled down upon England in respect to her management of our grand ward. Here we have side by side districts in the last stage of suffering and misery, with magnificent railways, executed at a cost that has loaded the country with a perfectly hopeless debt, now amounting to upwards of 60 Millions, which is the actual balance against the railways at this moment, the districts which are now in this terrible state having each had about 1½ millions spent upon them, (including the accumulation of interest,) and on the other hand, districts far above all the other districts of India in prosperity, and revenue, on which only from four to £700,000 have been spent on works suited to the wants and capacities of the Country, and the sole effort of the Officials, supported by the press, is to keep out of sight the results which are staring us in the face. The three districts of Tanjore, Godavery and Kistnah, which before the Irrigation Works, paid, with terrible difficulty, One Million £ a year, are now paying nearly Two Millions, the effect of less than a million and a half expended, and this with far greater ease than they paid the half before. If the other districts were treated on the same principles even to a very moderate extent, India would all be in the highest state of prosperity both in respect of the condition of the people, and in that of finance. The vile opium trade and the cruel salt tax might both be given up, and the whole finance settled on a thoroughly healthy foundation. The actual gain to the Treasury from these two shameful items, the utter disgrace of our rule,