As our present position about the Famine, is evidently mite-
understood, we will just restate it. We hold the .Government of India to have failed for nearly three months to meet an inevi- table danger in any adequate way. That Government, however, once awake, acted with great energy, and will, we scarcely doubt, " save " part of' Behar. The "counties covered with carts and armies of coolies," for which we called, are there ; the economy: we derided'has been abandoned ; the labour teat we denounced has been made nominal ; and even the method, of carriage we suggested, namely, carriage of rice-bags by coolies to the villages, has been officially sanctioned. Tle deaths in Tirhoot, Chumparun, and elsewhere, are very numerous— the Viceroy's report of " stx " merely showing that the people do not die while civilians are looking at them— but they probably do not yet exceed the inevitable proportion. The great fear now is for the half-famine districts, for counties like Burdwan, where the sub-divisional officers "send in gloomy. accounts ;" like Purtteah, where the Lieutenant-Governor cannot, account for the absence of people on the works ; like Sarun,, where "three-fifths of the labourers are women and children ;" like Dinajpore, "the most distressed district of all;" like Bhaugul- pore, where in February Sir R.. Temple "thought supplies must- be largely increased ;" like Hooghly, where the police are already-- distributing money ; and like the Eastern Districts—as yet.only distressed by high prices, but "for which there will be little or no reserve of food." Every one of these statements, except the one on Hooghly, is official,—that is, is taken from, the weekly narrative of tne Government of Bengal. Lord George Hamilton says the half-famine districts are provided with stacks, and we have no evidence that they are not, though if-the Eastern Districts should suffer, we have evidence that they cannot,receive aid;, but the test will come soon, and will be terrible. It is after the rains! have ended, after Bengal has been for tan..weeks a.prison.rhouse, that we shall know whether or not we have stored up sufficient grain on the spot. Six weeks more, and transport will be _impossible.
Previous page
