The news of the week about the Bengal famine is
not, to our minds, reassuring. Government evidently will get the food, for it speaks of 70,000 tons already collected—that is, food for one million persons for 140 days, after allowing 10 per cent. for waste or injury. But we still distrust the official calculation of the number of millions to be relieved. Lord Northbrook appears to us, as we have explained elsewhere, to admit that 38,000,000 of people will only have half enough food, and he has always stated that one-tenth of these will have to be maintained out of Government stores for six months. We fear he has based his calculation on previous reports of famines, which are useless, from the difference of area covered, and that he, with the India House, has forgotten that only one-fifth of all to be supported are able-bodied labourers, the rest being women, children, and old men. Our own dread remains as before,—that two-tenths will require direct relief from the State, and that though food will be found, it will not reach the villages, where alone, as we contend, it can fulfil the great design,—a distinct victory over ti—e' famine. We want to save all,—not the men available for public works. It is quite evident, however, that, as apart from the question of,pumbers, the Viceroy is rising to the height of circumstances.
