Evening star., 1904-03-23
THE WORK OF RELIEF
What the Government Does
for the Famine Stricken.
TO SAVE AND ASSIST
STATEMENT BY LORD CURZON,
VICEROY OF INDIA.
For Weeks More Than Six Million Per-
sons Depended Upon the Aid of the
Authorities-Plans for Future.
BY WILLIAM E. CURTIS,
Special Correspondence OF The Evening Star and
Chicago Record Herald.


Special Correspondence OF The Evening Star and
Chicago Record Herald.
DELHI, February 29 1904.
The recent famine of 1900-01, which, as l
told you yesterday, cost a million and a
quarter lives. affected an area of more than
four hundred thousand square miles and a
populate exceeding sixty millions, of
whom twenty-five millions belong in the
provinces of British India and thirty-five
millions to the native states.
within this area" Lord Curzon said,
the famine conditions for the greater part
OF a year were intense. Outside it they eE
tended with a gradually dwindling radiL.
over wide districts which suffered much
from loss of crops and cattle if not from
actual scarcity. In a greater or less degree
in 10000 nearly one-fourth of the entire
population of the Indian continent came
within the range of relief operations.
Extent of the Loss.
''It is difficult to express in figures with
any close degree of accuracy the loss oc
casioned by so widespread and severe a
visitation. But it may be roughly put in
this way. The annual agricultural product
of India averages in value between two and
three hundred million pounds sterling
On very cautious estimate the production
In lS99-19O0 must have been at least one
quarter if not one-third below the average
Al normal prices this loss was al least fifty
million pounds sterling, or, In round num-
bers, two hundred and fifty million dollars
in American money. But, in reality, the loss
fell on a portion only of the continent and
ranged from total failure of crops in GER
tain sections to a loss of 20 and 80 per cent
OF the normal crops in districts which are
not reckoned as falling within the famine
tract If to this be added the value of sew
eral millions of cattle and other live stock,
scme conception may be formed of the de-
struction of property which that great
drought occasioned. There have been many
great droughts in India, but there have
been no others of which such figures could
have been predicated these.
TT must be remembered further that, un-
like previous famines, that of 1900-01 was
separated by the short space of only two
years from a drought not greatly inferior
to 1t in extent and severity. Some sections
which suffered in 1897 were fortunate
enough to escape in 1900. But the most
calamitous feature of the recent famine
that there were sections which not
only suffered again, but suffered even in a
worse degree. 1t was not merely a crop
failure. but a fodder famine on an enor-
nous scale. followed in many parts by
positive devastation of cattle, both plow
cattle. buffalos and mlch kline. 1t affected
and may almost be said to have annihilated
the working capital of the agricultural
classes.
"The crops and food supply of India de-
pend mainly upon rain. Out of a total crop
area of 225, 100000 acres in the British
provinces, about one-siXth is irrigated from
wells. canals, tanks and rivers. The main
food supply depends upon the autumn rains.
In the summer of 1899 the rains began late
and with less Vigor than usual The rain
fall of July and August was below the nor
NAL supply over the whole of western and
central India, and over considera BILE tracts
of southern and northern India, while
throughout all those regions September and
October were practically rainless. GuZa-
rat ard Cathiawar, whose rainfall Is gener-
ally so abundant and so regular that they
have beben styled the garden of India,
were attacked, and there, in proportion as
the immunity hitherto enjoyed had been
the longest, was the suffering the most
widespread and enduring.
The Governments Work of Relief.
"In very diverse circumstances the meth
DDS of relief, the difficulties encountered
and the degree of success attained varied
greatly. The preceding famine had be-
queathed experience and lessons of the ut
most value. But the most notable feature
of the famine of 190A-01 was the liberality
of the public and the government. 1t has
no parallel in the history of the world
For weeks more than six million persons
were dependent upon the charity of the
government. In 1897 the high water mark
of re ief was reached in the second fortnight
of May, when there were nearly four mill
lion persons receiving relief in British In
dia. Taking the affected population as
forty millions, the ratio of relief was 10
per cent In one district of Madras and in
two districts of the northwestern provinces
the ratio for some months was about 80
per cent, but these were exceptional cases.
In the most distressed districts of the cen
tral provinces 16 per cent was regarded in
1867 as very high standard of relief.
Now take the figures of 1900-01. For some
weeks upward of four and a half million
persons were receiving food from the gov
ernment in British India, and, reckoned
on population of twenty-five millions,
the ratio was Is per cent compared with
10 per cent of the population in 1897 In
many districts it exceeded 20 per cent In
several it exceeded 20 per cent. In two
districts it exceeded 40 per cent, and in the
district OF MerWara, where famine had been
present for two years, 75 per cent of the
population were dependent upon the gov
ernment for food. Nothing I could say can
intensity the simple eloquence of these fig
ureS.
THE first thing to be done was to re-
lieve the immediate distress to feed the
hungry, to rescue those who were dying of
starvation. The next step was to furnish
employment at living wages for those who
were penniess until we could help them to
get back upon their feet again, and finally
to devise means and methods to meet such
emergencies in the future. because famines
are the fate of India and most continue to
recur under existing conditions.
Distributing Relief.