The Government of India should order a new census of
the districts of Southern India affected by the famine. It is impos- sible to legislate for the prevention of famines, unless we can estimate the pressure with which we have to deal, and as yet no
estimate of losses has been given. The natives say that one person in three has perished and four-fifths of the cattle, and though native statements of figures are worth little, it is cer- tain that the mortality from want of food, privation, and disease has risen to millions. Mysore, in particular, will hardly recover for a generation. The Government is probably unwilling to face the actual facts, but that policy is most unwise. There will not be an acre the less planted for the revelation, while the magnitude of the disaster may make efforts in preven- tion serious which otherwise would be perfunctory. It is difficult to imagine anything more creditable to the population of Madras than their conduct under this calamity. They have neither rebelled, nor rioted, nor complained, but have quietly accepted the inscrutable will of the Almighty. So far from kill- ing each other for food, as the Chinese do, they have not attacked the grain stores ; and in Madras city, men died of hunger while lying around the bags of corn, and picking up the scattered grains which dropped from them. We do not know that such resignation is not injurious, but there is something touchingly beautiful in it, too. The religions of the East have done that for their votaries. They can wait on the Power they recognise as higher than them- selves.
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