The Ganges Floods In the wake of the earthquake last
January has come the hardly less devastating visitation of floods to the sorely pressed districts of the United Provinces and Bihar. From Allahabad in the United Provinces to Monghyr in Eastern Bihar the Ganges has been in flood and has submerged scores of the ramshackle villages on its river banks. Even the great Hardinge bridge was threatened. To develop flood-defence measures is clearly the next task of the Government of India. It is indeed the justification of the British in India that they have grappled with a great measure of success with the successive dangers to which the life of the Indian villager was exposed. Famines are now virtually horrors of the past and a great deal has been done by sanitation and medical services to check the outbreak of plague. There are increasing signs of a willingness on the part of the leaders of nationalist opinion to co-operate in this work. It will not be the least contribution of Great Britain to India if it succeeds in persuading the Indian people that these terrible afflictions can be, if not avoided, at any rate mitigated by the _resolute action of man. Thanks to British co-operation India can resist the forces of Nature far more effectively than, for example, China.
* * *
Previous page
