The news of the Bengal famine has throughout the week
been bad. It is announced that the Viceroy has warned all authorities to restrict expenditure, as the " financial strain " may be severe, and that some difference of opinion exists between him and Sir George Campbell as to the extent of money required at once. Sir George asked for half a million at once, but only got a quarter of a million, and that out of "provincial funds,"—that is, we suppose, the provincial budget of public works. A Lieu- tenant-Governor, it should be remembered, can only spend £500 without the Viceroy's sanction, and has no power of communi- cating with England, as the Governors of Madras and Bomliay have. It is also stated in a Reuter telegram that the famine covers 25,000,000 of people (new census), and Reuter leaves out Benares and Goruckpore, which, though outside Bengal, have been scarcely struck. We have tried elsewhere to reconcile con- flicting accounts, and persuade Mr. Gladstone to compel the India Office to give up its absurd and evidently methodised obscurantism. We remain strongly convinced, as we see do the Times and Tele- graph, that though relief is still possible by most energetic prepa- rations, the neglect of them may leave on the conscience of this Ministry a loss of life like that of 1770. It is just in April, when the Budget comes forward, that Parliament will know the truth, and if it is as we fear it may be, the Ministry may imagine the temper Members will be in.
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