The Economic Journal

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: REVIEWS The Great Famine and its Causes. By Vaughan Nash. (London: Longmans. 1901.) Events of more striking interest elsewhere have conspired to divert the attention of the British public from the famine which prevailed two years ago throughout more than one half of India. Probably the most remarkable...
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Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: REVIEWS The Great Famine and its Causes. By Vaughan Nash. (London: Longmans. 1901.) Events of more striking interest elsewhere have conspired to divert the attention of the British public from the famine which prevailed two years ago throughout more than one half of India. Probably the most remarkable feature in the whole story is the comparative ease with which the calamity was dealt with, and the rapidity with which the country has recovered. For it must be borne in mind that the famine was both more wide-spread and more severe than any other accurately known in history. Not only did the harvest fail, but also the water supply. Hence an almost complete loss of cattle in many districts, and virulent outbreaks of cholera. Food for the starving population never ran short. Burma and the rest of India provided abundant supplies, which were carried to the spot by railways without any interference with private trade. Government, which took the responsibility for saving life on its own shoulders, was thus enabled to feed during many months no less than six millions of people, the proportion in some tracts rising to one-third of the inhabitants. It is estimated that the total expenditure incurred by the State, including remissions of revenue and advances that will not be repaid, amounts to fifteen millions sterling. Nevertheless, the Indian budget shows a considerable surplus for each of the two years included in the famine period. Nothing could demonstrate more clearly the efficiency of the administration on the one hand, and on the other the stability of the financial system. The preliminary returns of the Census taken on the 1st March, 1901, furnish some indication of the effects of the famine upon the population. During the decade between 1881 and 1891, the rate of increase...