FAMINES has been supposed to furnish a needful check upon an inordinate growth of population; and with that view, they have been deemed useful regulators of the universe. A table, recently prepared by Cornelius Walford, read before the statistical society of London in 1878 and 1879, and published under the title, On the _Famines of the World, Past and Present, enumerates more than 350 famines which have occurred in history. It includes those mentioned in the Bible as afflicting Palestine and the neigh boring nations in the time of Abraham (Gen. xii. 10), and of Isaac (Gen. xxvi. 1); the seven years' famine in Egypt; those in ancient Rome; those which have visited the three divisions of Great Britain; those of Europe in the middle ages; the 34 famines of India; and the terrible calamity which has lately ravaged northern China. The table does not claim to be exhaustive. Famines are known to have occurred in China, of which no details have been found; and similar instances have probably existed in Persia and elsewhere in Asia.
The paper teaches that famines have frequently resulted from want of human fore sight, or the failure of human expedients. Analysis discloses the following causes of famine which might have been averted or ameliorated: War. —It draws from their employments those who would be engaged in the cultiva tion of the soil; it withholds the labor necessary to gather the crops already produced; it often devastates the plains in order to starve out an enemy; it wastes and destroys at every step. At sea, it blockades ports, and diverts cargoes from their destinations; on land, it cuts off armies, cities, districts, from their supplies. Still further, war breeds pestilence; pestilence cuts off many who have escaped from the sword; the land lies uncultivated; the live stock dies; and desolation follows. Hence the sword, pestilence, and famine are now, as they have been in all time, three associated deadly enemies of the human race.
Defective agriculture may result from ignorance, indifference, or unsuitability of climate, or location. Where the produce of the soil barely meets the current require ments of the inhabitants, it is clear that either the failure of a crop, or a sudden influx of strangers, may produce at least temporary famine. The distress in Ireland in 1879-80
was due in a large degree to the failure of the crops. Potatoes, still the staple food of a large proportion of the population, are set down in the agricultural returns of 1879 at 1,113,676 tons, against 2,526,504 tons in 1878; and of turnips there were but 2,057,804 tons, as compared with 4,686,226 tons of the previous year. The loss in money value to Ireland from this unfavorable harvest was estimated at over $50,000,000 as compared with 1878. This loss was distributed very evenly over the entire country, but its effect on the usually prosperous counties was only impoverishment, while it reduced to starva tion those districts entirely dependent on this precarious article of food.
Deficient transportation was formerly a frequent cause of famines. Because of the bad state of the roads a famine has prevailed in one part of a country when there was a superabundance in another. The construction of canals, and subsequently of railroads, has greatly relieved this difficulty. In India the late famines might have been over come if not averted, but for the want of the means of transport.
Legislative interference has been another cause of famines. It is not contended that in periods of emergency government should not step in and endeavor to mitigate the necessities of the hour; notable examples of such temporary restrictive regulations were shown by the more enlightened nations of antiquity; but it is a great mistake to attempt to regulate commerce to the subversion of the great principles of supply and demand. As an instance, we may cite the corn laws of Great Britain, which were repealed only at the indignant demand or the nation as recently as 1846. There is no doubt that the corn laws often prevented exportation of grain; but they permitted its importation only when prices reached or exceeded certain predetermined limits. The Irish famine of 1845-46 hastened their repeal.