Asiatic Quarterly Review (Full Title: The Imperial and Asiatic Quarterly Review, and Oriental and Colonial Record): Volume XIII, No. 26 [‎534r] (192/238)

An Impending Famine in India—a Forecast. 405
cannot have fields and forests growing upon the same spot any more than
two lines can occupy the same space, and anything like a general reaffores
tation of India is therefore out of the question. It may be laid down as an
axiom that as populations increase forests must decrease, and the popu
lation of India now stands somewhere near three hundred millions. By
all means plant your trees where there may be waste and fallow lands,
but I doubt if their total effect upon the rains will be anything
appreciable.
The moral of it all is that the Government of India will do well to take
time by the forelock and to undertake extensive irrigation works over
the length and breadth of the country before it becomes another Sahara
Desert by the end of, say, the year 2400—in another 500 years—though
this, I think, is a very liberal calculation.
Much time has been lost by Indian economists, but it is never too late
to begin. India is fortunate in having in Lord Curzon an energetic
Viceroy and a far-seeing statesman, and it is a happy augury of the times
that he has appointed an Irrigation Commission with a very able officer as
its president, whose deliberations soon ought to be in print. I only hope
this Commission will recommend no cheese-paring policy, as half-measures
are always unsatisfactory.
Nature has provided India with many mighty rivers, the waters of which,
alas ! find their way to the ocean year in, year out. If only a quarter of
the water that is thus wasted were turned to account, what a different story
it would be! India would doubtless be a rich and prosperous country
beyond the wildest dreams of avarice, and the gaunt spectre of famine
laid low for ever.
It is true we have some irrigation works in India, but, unfortunately, it
is also true that the amount of land for which irrigation is available is as
yet a mere fraction of the land totally dependent upon rainfall for cultiva
tion; and if, as recently stated somewhere, irrigation pays 6 per cent, upon
the outlay, it is past all understanding why the Indian Government do not
boldly go forward and devise means for irrigating the whole country
without further heckling. What the Nile is to the Egyptians the Ganges,
the Brahmaputra, and a hundred other mighty rivers in India should be
to the Indians.
In America President Roosevelt lately declared that in the western
countries of the States, irrigation should be extensively adopted, as those
countries can feed untold millions of people if so irrigated, and, depend
upon it, Roosevelt will do what he will say, no matter what it may cost. It
is necessary for India, I think, to follow the good example of Egypt and
America in this respect, or permanent bankruptcy and ruin must result in
the long-run.
It has been calculated that the Government of India have spent a
hundred millions sterling upon railways within the last twenty years, while
they have spent only twelve millions sterling upon irrigation works within
the same period. Whatever be the reasons for this rush of railways in the
past, it is certain that in the future policy of the Government of India
irrigation must take precedence of railways, or an economic crisis wiL