4
in all probability, have averted outbreaks from many localities and would have
lessened their severity in all. In view of this attitude of the people and in view
of the area and number of villages affected, any measure of compulsion not
supported by the wishes of the majority of the people themselves has
been entirely out of question. As long as the number of infected villages
was limited and Government had the resources and establishment neces-
sary for dealing with them individually, the policy of compulsion was practicable
and justified. But it aroused opposition while it was enforced, and during the
period now under review, the opposition to plague measures which the peo-
ple thought the State authorities intended to press gave rise in Patiála.
to a serious riot on the 19th of February 1902. The only reason for the
absence of discontent and disturbance in the Punjab has been the absence of
compulsion. In the circumstances it was necessary frankly to leave the adoption
of plague measures to the option of the people concerned and to relieve them
from all restrictions and orders which, while they failed in restraining
the spread of infection, gave rise to inconvenience and irritation on the part of
those to whom they were applied. At the beginning of the period under review
certain compulsory measures were still in force, including those intended for the
prevention of the spread of plague by the collection of infected persons at fairs,
marriages and caste-gatherings, and for the surveillance of persons from infected
districts, but these have now been abandoned ; though the willingness of Government
to use compulsion when the feeling of the people demands it has been made clear
by the issue of rules permitting the eviction of suspected strangers from villages-
and muhallas where the residents object to their presence, and permitting
of the compulsory evacuation of a minority in villages where the majority desires
evacuation.
8. The opinions of District Officers from which extracts are given by
the Chief Plague Medical Officer in his report for 1901-02 were received and
fully considered by the Lieutenant-Governor before he issued his orders for
the plague measures prescribed in the Flague Manual of October 1902. The
measures prescribed in the Plague Manual and in force during 1902-03 were
reviewed in detail with the advice of a strong committee of officers with plague-
experience before His Honour ordered the issue of Punjab Government Notifica-
tion No. 1936 L. P., dated the 16th of November 1903, in which the measures
now in force were discussed and laid down.
9. The measure on which most reliance has been and must be placed
is evacuation. The value of this has already been established, and the-
reports for 1901-03 contain further evidence in its favour. It is by adopting
this measure »hat the people can help themselves best. They must not,
however, look to Government for assistance in money or establishment. It is
out of the question for Government to provide huts or extra police and
chaukídárs. Any attempt to provide huts generally for infected villages would
involve vast expenditure and much peculation, and the people can usually
hut themselves without difficulty, while they can also guard against the danger
of theft during evacuation by taking out their property with them or ap-
pointing extra chaukídárs for its protection. The present is the time at which
evacuation can be resorted to with the most advantage and the least incon-
venience to the people, and it appears to the Lieutenant-Governor that the cli-
matic objections to the measure in the Punjab are exaggerated. The climax of
the outbreaks in this Province occurs at a season when the people can leave their
villages and live in their fields without feeling the discomforts of cold or rain,
and even where il has not been possible previously to evacuate villages infected
in the cold weather, evacuation in March, April and May is calculated to have
a powerful influence in reducing the ordinarily heavy plague mortality of these
months. The evacuation of villages in which infection has already taken root
or where its existence may be evidenced by the death of men or rats is a matter
of the first importance. But to be effectual evacuation must be complete and
villages must be left empty till the infection in them has died out or been killed
by disinfection or desiccation. The people, it is true, recognise the value of
the measure, and it is everywhere resorted to more or less. But His Honour
regrets that it is usually resorted to in a manner which deprives it of much of