Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 12.djvu/791

767 FAMINES.] INDIA 767 of Bengal. There the annual rainfall rarely, if ever, falls below 100 inches ; artificial irrigation and famine are alike unknown. The whole of the rest of the peninsula may be described as liable, more or less, to drought. In Orissa, the scene of one of the most severe famines of recent times, the average rainfall exceeds 60 inches a year; in Sind, which has been exceptionally free from famine under British rule, the average falls to less than 10 inches. The local rainfall, therefore, is not the only element to be con sidered. Broadly speaking, artificial irrigation has pro tected, or is now in course of protecting, certain fortunate regions, such as the eastward deltas of the Madras rivers and the upper valley of the Ganges. The rest, and by far the greater portion, of the country is still exposed to famine. Nor is it easy to see any remedy. Meteorological science may teach us to foresee what is coming ; but it may be doubted whether it is in our power to do more than alleviate. Lower Bengal and Oudh are watered by natural inundation as much as by the local rainfall ; Sind derives its supplies mainly from canals filled by the floods of the Indus; the Punjab and the North-West Provinces are dependent largely upon wells; the Deccan with the entire south is the land of tanks and reservoirs. But in all these cases, when the rainfall has failed over a series of years, the artificial supply must likewise fail after no long interval, so that irrigation becomes a snare rather than a benefit. Water works on a scale adequate to guarantee the whole of India from drought are not only above the possibilities of finance; they are also beyond the reach of engineering skill. iiine Taking the example of the famine of 1876-78, the most
 * 6-78. w i,je S p rea( i an d the most prolonged that India has yet

known, we may say that the drought commenced in Mysore by the failure of the monsoon in 1875, and that all fear of distress in the North- West Provinces did not pass away until 1879. But it will always be known in history as the great famine in the south. Over the entire Deccan, from Poona to Bangalore, the south-west monsoon failed to bring its usual rainfall in the summer of 1876. In the autumn of the same year the north-east monsoon proved deficient in the south-eastern districts of the Madras presi dency. The main food crop, therefore, entirely perished throughout an immense tract of country ; and, as the harvest of the previous year had also been short, prices rapidly rose to famine rates. In November 1876 it was first officially recognized that starvation was abroad in the land, and that Government must adopt measures to keep the people alive. From that time until the middle of 1878, a period of more than eighteen months, the campaign against famine was strenuously conducted, with various vicissitudes. The summer -monsoon of 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. Mean while the wave of drought had reached northern India, where it found the stocks of grain much depleted to meet the famine demand in the south. Bengal, Assam, and Burmah were the only provinces that escaped scot free in that disastrous year. The North-West Provinces, the Punjab, Rajputana, and the Central Provinces alike suffered from drought through all the summer of 1877, and from its consequences well into the following year. When once famine gets ahead of relief operations, all is over. The flood of distress bursts through the embankment. Starva tion and all the attendant train of famine diseases sweep away their thousands. The total expenditure of Govern ment upon famine relief on this occasion may be estimated at about 8 millions sterling, not including the indirect loss of revenue nor the amount debited against the state of Mysore. For this large sum of money there is but little to show in the way 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 re turned 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 con trasting 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 year of famine, the births fell to 477,447, while the deaths rose to 1,556,312. In 1878 the results of the famine showed 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 considerably below the average, and the deaths diminished to 548,158. These figures are, of course, not accurate ; but they serve to show how long the results of famine are to be traced in the vital statistics of a people. 1 The first great famine of which we have any trustworthy re- Previous cord is that which devastated the lower valley of the Ganges in famines. 1769-70. One-third of the population is credibly reported to have perished. The previous season had been bad ; and, as not uncom monly happens, the break-up of the drought was accompanied by disastrous floods. Beyond the importation into Calcutta and Mur- shidabad of a few thousand maunds of rice from the fortunate dis tricts of Bakarganj and Chittagong, it does not appear that any public measures for relief were taken or proposed. The next great famine was that which afflicted the Carnatic from 1780 to 1783, and has been immortalized by the genius of Burke. It was primarily caused by the ravages of Hyder All s army. A public subscription was organized by the Madras Government, from which sprang the &quot; Monegar Choultry,&quot; or permanent institution for the relief of the native poor. In 1783-84 Hindustan Proper suffered from a prolonged drought, which stopped short at the frontier of British territory. Warren Hastings, then governor-general, advo cated the construction of enormous granaries, to be opened only in times of necessity. One of these granaries or golds stands to the present day in the city of Patna, but it was never used until the scarcity of 1874. In 1790-92 Madras was again the scene of a two years famine, which is memorable as being the first occasion on which the starving people were employed by Government on relief works. No useful lesson of administrative experience is to be learned from the long list of famines and scarcities which afflicted the several provinces of India at recurring periods during the first half of the present century. In 1860-61 a serious attempt was made to alleviate an exceptional distress in the North- Western Pro vinces. About half a million persons are estimated to have been relieved at an expenditure by Government of about three quarters of a 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 distribute charitable funds. But on neither of these occasions can it be said that the efforts were suc cessful. In Orissa, especially, the admitted loss of one-fourth of 1 With regard to the deaths caused by the famine and the diseases connected with it, the Famine Commissioners thus report: &quot;It has been estimated, and in our opinion on substantial grounds, that the mortality which occurred in the provinces under British administration during the period of famine and drought extending over the years 1877 and 1878 amounted, on a population of 197 millions, to 5J millions in excess of the deaths that would have occurred had the seasons been ordinarily healthy ; and the statistical returns have made 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 mille, on 190 millions of people, the abnormal mortality of the famine period may be regarded as having increased this total by about 40 per cent. &quot; But when estimated over a period of years the effect of famine as a check upon the population is small. The Famine Com missioners calculate that, taking the famines of the past thirty years, as to which alone an estimateof any value can be made, the abnormal deaths caused by famine and its diseases have been less than 2 per mille of the Indian population per annum. As a matter of fact cultivation quickly extended after the famine of 1877-78, and there were in Bom bay and Madras 120,000 more acres under tillage after the long pro tracted scarcity than before it.