The Famine Campaign in Southern India, 1876-1878. By William Digby,
Hon. Secretary Indian Famine Relief Fund. 2 vols. (Long- mans and Co.)—Mr. Digby does not put this book forward as a history of the famine campaign in Southern India. It is too soon, he justly says, to write such a history. All that he aims at, therefore, is a collection of the facts relating to the famine, and to the policies adopted by the Government and by private organisations at the various centres of distress, thus furnishing the raw materials for the future historian. The book comes thus to be a sort of magazine of famine-facts, and as such alone ought it to be judged. We shall, therefore, abstain from criticising it by any very severe standard, although we think de- cidedly that the author has been very merciless to his readers. They are forced to wade through wearisome chapters devoted to the wrangles of officials, all zealous in their way do good work, but fright- fully at variance as to the way the work should be done, and wordy in their strife to an extent that seems to be peculiarly Indian. Nor is that all. Mr. Digby has cut up bis book into sections, in a way that makes it look in parts like a series of newspaper articles strung together so as to swell out its size. There is an absence of unity in the writing. We are constantly referred backwards or forwards to something said elsewhere, and most subjects are treated at undue length. Some of these defects are caused by the evident haste with which the materials of the book have been gathered together; but we take it that they are chiefly due to the inability of the writer to raise himself above the merely provincial view of events. There is, however, a great deal in these two volumes which deserves most serious consideration from all earnest-minded men. In our reading we come at every turn upon points of great interest, not merely in the history of the famine struggle itself, but in regard to the future of our rule in India. Questions social, economic, political, and religions are brought up in the most casual way, and make the book well
worth more than a casual glance. And we must say frankly that much of what is revealed is calculated to appal the mind, and to cause one to ask again and :gain the question,—Is not this mighty task the government of India, something that is proving too great for us ?
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