INDIAN FAMINES - Institute for Social and Economic Change

108 FINANCIAL AND OTHER RESULTS
and that the cost of its construction may ultimately
be debited to other funds than to those
of the famine. But with regard to other reliefworks,
we must, I fear, be guided by experience,
which tells us that these operations are
seldom of little permanent value.
Should this enormous expenditure after all
fail to yield favourable results in the rescue of
the people from starvation and misery, we have
still one negative consolation to fall back upon
-viz., that no other country has yet shown us
a better example to profit by, or can give us
any useful hints regarding better management.
\Ve are not unaccustomed to hear it said regarding
many of our institutions that "they
manage these things better abroad j" but at all
events, so far as any of our neighbours, whether
near or far, have tried their "prentice hand" on
such disasters, I do not think that they can
point the finger of scorn at us in this respect.
We have, with this Bengal famine, a synchronous
one in Asia Minor; and to judge by all
accounts of the latter, we have reason to congratulate
ourselves. From the accounts of the
last famine in Persia, we may also safely con-