Asiatic Quarterly Review (Full Title: The Imperial and Asiatic Quarterly Review, and Oriental and Colonial Record): Volume XIII, No. 26 [‎531v] (187/238)

400 Famine in India: its Causes and Effects.
cultivator? He does not seem to admit that climatic considerations are
responsible at all. Trade is just as brisk in the Ganges Valley as elsewhere,
and I have no doubt the ryots rejoice in the steady demand for their crops,
which enables them to realize their value promptly. Being prosperous
themselves, they perhaps treat their labourers liberally, and perhaps pay
them in grain, as they did in Tanjore when I was there, in which case the
rise or fall of prices affects them not at all.
I am not personally acquainted with Lower Bengal, but I feel sure the
ryots there no longer follow the antiquated practice of storing grain as a
safeguard against famine. Nature is bountiful, and no doubt the careful
and more intelligent ryot there has learnt that it is better and easier to
store his crop in the form of rupees Indian silver coin also widely used in the Persian Gulf. . Mr. Hare’s whole book is an attack
on trade, and what he calls “ the curse of modern civilization.” Evidently
he would agree with Horace where he says (with some reason, no doubt):
“ Beatus ille, qui procul negotiis,
Ut prisca gens mortal ium,
Paterna rura bobus exercet suis,
Solutus omni fcenore
but is it likely he can so put back the clock, or “Juggernaut car of Western
progress,” as Mr. Thorburn calls it ? The survival of the fittest seems to be
one of Nature’s apparently cruel laws, and just now it is the agricultural
labouring classes everywhere—not in India alone—who are suffering from
it. As far as I can see, Mr. Hare has no practical remedy to suggest,
and Mr. Digby now despairs of any. But surely the case is not quite
hopeless even yet. Land nationalizers insist that if land is made freely
accessible to labour all will be well; and, certainly, when every labouring
man has the option of taking land for himself, instead of working for
someone else, he will have been truly emancipated for the first time in the
history of England. But that his right to get land will not save him from
famine is, in India at any rate, a matter of sad experience; for, whatever
defects it may have, the Madras ryotwari system of land-holding is, in fact,
land nationalization, and everyone in Madras can almost always get land
direct from the Government if he really wants it, or can do well by
emigrating, and can also have land in his village free of charge on which
to build his humble home.
It is useless to complain of evils unless one is prepared to at least
suggest a remedy, and I, unfortunately, have no panacea to offer ; but I
do think that we should do all in our power to educate the natives to
manage their own affairs, and reduce the number of Europeans employed,
as far as may be compatible with safety. In other words, I would
endeavour to make our rule more “ enlightened ” and less “ selfish ” every
year, and I am inclined to agree with Mr. Thorburn that the tendency is
in that direction, though progress is desperately slow. As I have said
elsewhere, Mr. Hyndman’s idea that we should extend the Mysore system,
with its native administration “under light English guidance,” seems the
most practicable solution of our troubles that I have yet met with.
It is not likely that an intelligent ryot could be persuaded to sell his