Page:Arthur Cotton - The Madras Famine - 1898.djvu/29



Sir. You were good enough to admit a letter from me once on that subject of vital importance—I should say mortal—in India, Irrigation and Water Carriage. The frightful Famine in Madras recalls us all to it. When the Government are obliged to feed one Million and a half of our fellow subjects—when these have been perishing in spite of us, at the rate of 930 per thousand in the Relief Camps—when nearly half the Population of Villages have died of Famine Cholera—when men were not put on the Relief Works till they were too far reduced by starvation to do any real work—when their bullocks were all dead, so that their very means for raising the next crop were all gone—we are fain to ask what has Irrigation done for the Madras Presidency? This question, a Report just issued by the Madras Irrigation Company, dated May 8, 1877, received at the India Office June 19th, answers for us at least as repectsrespects [sic] one District. But first let us observe that there are four Districts at this time which ought to have been like the other twelve, overwhelmed by this terrible calamity, but three of which are not only free from Famine themselves, but are in the highest state of prosperity, having a large surplus to supply the other Districts; and the fourth, though not entirely relieved from Famine, yet has a very considerable supply of Grain. What has made the difference between these three Districts and those which are under the terrible sufferings of Famine? The Government Irrigation Works. The three Districts, Tanjore, Godavery, and Kistnah, instead of adding five Millions more to starve, are pouring into the starving Districts hundreds of thousands of tons of food. Sir Arthur Cotton, 26 years in charge of those very Districts, which are in the heart of Famine, supplying food, could tell us more of this. It was the same in the Behar Famine. The Behar Works, while they were yet unfit to be opened, were made to Water 160,000 acres, producing a crop worth £500,000 in the midst of dearth. The whole cost of the Works were actually paid by a single crop, and thousands of people saved from death.

But to return to the fourth of the above Districts referred to: this is Kurnool in the N. W. of Madras, in the very depths of the Famine part of the Peninsula. This is the District watered by the Irrigation Company, from the Toombudra River. The Works have cost £1,600,000, and are capable of watering two crops on 400,000 acres, or at the rate of £2 per acre of crop. Then, also, the Water would afford Carriage at a nominal cost. The main Canal, alone, is 190 miles in length from Kurnool to Cuddapah. The Officers are to sell the Water at the price of twelve shillings per acre, worth £2.

A Missionary in the Godavery District told Sir Arthur, that scores of times the people had gratefully said to him “we never got the Godavery Water on our lands till you Christians came here,”