, 1874-07-29

ures thus The e~xortionS of the London Press
and it's agents, the timely speech Of Mr.. Disrae-
Ii, and the "8espotism'' of Lord Salisbury
have so stimulated the Indiln Government, that
it has undertaken a task never yet attempted
by man. It has endeavoured to feed for a
twe}vemonth three millions of human beings,
under difficulties to which the difficulties in Ire
land were trivial, and it has, in all human pro-
liability, if the rains are fulI-that is, if nature
resumes her ordinary course-succeeded in the
attempt. That is a magnificent feat to have
accomplished, and one before which all criti-
cism = certainly all criticism of the pettier sort
must, perforoe, give way. Lord Northbrook,
as we deem, was too late, and as we have pre-
vlously shown, was mistaken as to the intensity
OF the famine; but once aware of the facts
once, that Is, sure of his nformation-he rene
died that mistake in the only ways open to him,
by strenuous, persistent, personal effort, and
by a resolute disregard of outlay, as compared
with human life. He has, so far, entirely sue
ceeded, for though his list Of twenty-five dead
OF hunger is a mere formula, d aths from want
being reported as deaths from fever, dysentery,
and old age, it is certain that the rate of deaths
has been small, and we, who condemned his
conduct in the beginning as wanting in fore
sight, shall be the last to underrate his success
when energy has supplied the deficiency want
of forwArdness had caused. He has been
English all over, suffering as England does
in battle from want of readiness, making up
for the deficiency by nerve and stubborn
ness, and emerging from the battle, as we
hope, better prepared for 3 campaign than
when he entered. Nor has his expenditure
been more lavish than the expenditure by
which England always, in a campaign, reme-
dies her unreadiness, proviles as it were, the
tools which ought to have been ready to her
I-1- H. I'll FL --Nl- = G.s,LA1
it will be found that the waste absolutely eS-
seDtial to compensate the delay has not ex-
ceeded a million; that tho great work could
not have been achieved-if it has been aChiev-
ed-at a cost less than a million or so short Of
the cost incurred that we have not, in fact,
wasted, under far more difficult circumstances,
more than a third of the sum admitted to have
been wasted in Ireland in securing a far less
perfect result. The waste of that sum was
essential to make up the lee-Way, and in our
Judgment, to save it would have been a cruel
ty exasperated by our peculiar relation to the
people relieved. We have robbed them for a
century, They are within the limit of the
Bengal Lieutenant Overnorship, and within
that limit we have for a century raised a sur
plus revenue of which part ought, in common
honesty, to have been devoted to the improve
ment of the province Itself. 1t has not been
so devoted, but has been spent upon our wars.
No man acquainted with Bengal, whatever his
hatred of our views, questions that this is true
that up to the death of Lord Dalhousie, and in
deed, up to this day Bengal has been robbed,
has been refused that share of her own revenue
which every other province has received.
1t is just at this stage of the proceedings
that a few of the Indian papers have begun to
raise a cry about "waste," and sensational
writing, 2" and manufactured famine;' p to at
tack individuals, and to assert that we are
creating for the first time a permanent Poor
Law. Except as to the charge of writing rhe-
t~orically, instead of DULY, to which we plead
guilty, and shall plead guilty again, whenever
Englishmen stuff their ears as they did about
this famine till Mr.. Disraeli spoke, there is not
one word of truth in all these charges, which
really proceed from a belief that it would
have been wiser to let Nature have her way,
and thin an overdose population at discretion.
The famine has not as yet struck the Ben
galee-speaking people heavily, as Sir G.. Camp
bell in his narrative of November 81 feared
it might but it has struck the Beharees, and
there is no shadow of doubt that but for the
energy pressed on the Government of India
by the London Press, by the Duke of Argyll,
and by Lord Salisbury, nearly three millions of
people would have died of hunger. They are
alive, and we are utterly careless of any other