FAMINES. From the earliest historical times India has suffered often and terribly from fam ines. There is much disagreement, however, in the matter of locating the responsibility among the different factors which have been held accountable for them. While famines are, of course, always preceded by local crop failure. almost every com munity is said to produce enough in ordinary times to bridge over the occasional period of scarcity, and it would appear that there has never been a year when the whole country did not pro duce enough food for all its inhabitants. Since crop failure always is at least the local cause of these awful experiences, it is worthy of first con sideration. The general cause of crop failure is in the first instance a lack of sufficient moisture for the growing crops. though the period of in sufficient crops may be extended because of the want of seed for a new crop. or of animals to till the soil. In limited districts floods sometimes destroy the crops, hut the construction of embank ments and canals has greatly lessened their de structiveness. In former ye'ars, under a less stable form of government, wars were not infre quent, and a shortage of crops and resultant famine ensued. But this factor has been much less conspicuous since the British control. In the paragraph above on climate \Nil] he found described the important natural elements which determine the distribution of moisture in India. It is only necessary here to note that there are districts in which the rainfall is always heavy— the chief of these being the region south of Bom bay, the Deltaic region of the Ganges-Brahma putra in the northeast, and Assam. There are other regions in which the rainfall is always very light. the largest being in Sindh and IZajpu Jana. Throughout the remainder and most ex tensive portion of India the rainfall is subject to more or less uncertainty. In some portions. as in Upper Bengal and in Orissa. the fall is ordinarily heavy. In other regions. i.e. the upper valleys of the Ganges and Indus rivers, and throughout the Deccan and southeast coast—the precipitation is less constant, and failures of crops more frequent. The more densely popu lated distriets, where the rainfall is abundant, are always ill prepared to meet a crop failure. and consequently suffer terribly when it conies. By means of irrigation works (see par. I rriya tion) the extent of crop failure, however, has been greatly lessened over many parts of the coun try. especially where the rainfall is most un certain and inadequate. Under British admin
istration such works have even been extended into districts where the rainfall is usually suffi cient. Irrigation itself sometimes fails, as in Madras, where the precipitation may not be great enough to supply the reservoirs or keep the streams full enough to supply the irrigation ea nals. Naturally the extent of the area affected by drought and the intensity of the distress and the frequency of occurrence vary greatly. The area may represent a third or more of the total population. The failure of a single season sel dom, if ever, brings distress. It is when the sec ond or sometimes the third failure occurs that relief is necessary.
It has been maintained that the destruction of the forests, which has been especially great in recent years, is not a little responsible for the droughts. A policy of reforestation therefore has been advocated, and steps have been taken to pre serve the remaining forest areas. The fact that in districts adjacent to those where a famine may prevail a surplus of food crops is usually found. but cannot be transported owing to lack of facilities, has led the Government to construct railways, which would help greatly to solve the famine problem. The beneficial results. however, have been much disputed. The lack of rolling stock, for instance, has sometimes prevented the timely delivery of famine stores. A more serious accusation is that by bringing a district visited by famine in communication with the world's mar kets the district is annually drained of the sur plus food which would otherwise remain in store for a year of scarcity. The main portion of the wheat crop of the Northwest is exported to Eu rope, though the native. may (lie of want before another crop is harvested. This criticism is part of a more general charge against the influence of the British Administration. The native, deprived of his manufacturing industries (see Manufac tures in this article), and forced to purchase foreign products, as well as being obliged to pay a land tax which many claim is overburdensome, finds it impossible to retain any considerable por tion of his produce. On the other band. it is claimed that the native burdens himself with unnecessary debt : that he lacks thrift and is improvident. Before the British came it was more or common for both private and public stores of grain to be kept from year to year ; the latter were even required by law to he so kept. Latterly, however. the public stores. and to a large extent the private granaries. have disap peared.