The times. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1897-1901, 1900-05-02
Corn for Starving India.

1t is said that a movement has beer
started in the State of Kansas TO send one
million bushels of Kansas corn to tn,
emine-stricken people Of India. The first
Sunday in May will be known as India
Relief Day collections will be taken up
in all the churches. and ii is stated that
the fund thus secured will be used to pur-
chase corn and send 1t to points where food
is most needed. The plan is said TO be the
| uutgrowth of sugge stions made by the
| Rev. Charles NJ Sheldon during his re-
markable experience as journalist
This is all very pretty and pleasant es-
pecially il the money contributed is used
! to purchase corn from the Kansas farm
ers. thus encouraging home industries and
keeping the whole thing inside the limits
| of the State; but there is a question
whether the starving people in India will
get much benefit from the operation. In
| the first place it is going to cost a con-
siderable sum of money TO carry that corn
/ to India, and it will also take much time.
| 1t seems as if some more convenient way
of feeding the hungry might be found.
Moreover, those familiar with current
history may remember that great and
continued efforts have been made to in
troduce Indian corn as an article OF diet
in Europe. and the only result has been
increased consumption OF that grain in the
making of beer and gin. The French,
German. Dutch. and other European peo-
pie have stubbornly refused to be con-
WINGED that the corn dodger, the hoe cake,
stewed sweet corn. or corn roasted in the
ear, were fit articles for human consump-
ton. In Germany they said corn was lao
doubt good cattle food, but as for human
beings eating it-such a thing was not
to be thought CT Here and there are peo-
pie who appreciate the American dainties,
but they are not more numerous in pro-
portion to the whole population than the
Americans who are devotees of the Span
ism iamale. Even in this country the con-
sumption OF corn has decreased, though
this is due less to any natural distaste
for the grain than TO artificial commercial
conditions. How. then. is the Indian peas
ant TO be convinced that corn is proper
food for him to eat?
1t may be said that starving people
ought to be glad TO get anything. This, as
English civilians in India, is not true OF
the Oriental. He is a fatalist, and death
has not for him the terror that it has for
the Western mind He becomes apathetic
and resigned where the European would
be fierce and wolfsh. And it has been
proved over and over again that he will
starve rather than eat food to which he
is not accustomed. During one great fam
inc carloads of millet were sent into the |
southern provinces from northern India, |
and those engaged in the relief work tried |
to show the natives how to bruise the |
grain in a mortar and make it eatable |
They refused TO try the experiment. They |
would barter large quantities of the new, |
strange food for a handful of rotten rice |
They were used to rice, and even when
of bad quality il was better in their eyes
than, millet. II they had to die they
would die under circumstances with which
they were familiar II anything in the
line of grain is TO be sent to India, then,
it would seem that the phianthropists
should go South and buy rice. or cable to
the English authorities to find ont what
ought to be done. Ii is reasonably certain
that a shipload of Indian corn will not be
Of much use 10 such a population as that
Of southern India.