INDIAN FAMINES - Institute for Social and Economic Change

H2
ADMINISTRATIVE MANAGEMENT
illustrate cases in which price-currents are not
at all seasons indicative of the distress felt.
Dr Hunter's recent work on 'Famine Warnings'
deals minutely with the subject of pricecurrents
as indications of impending distress.
Having alluded to the difficulties that beset
the question of determining whether a. famine
will exist or not, I now proceed to discuss the
measures which will probably be adopted as
modes of relief. Although we, or rather the
Government, have assumed that a famine is
impending, we must remember that the general
population have not necessarily also come to
the same conclusion. They are in ignorance of
the true state of affairs-i.e., they have a very
clear idea that the season has been a bad one,
and they will no doubt have vague notions of
probable or even of dire want-but they are
not certain of the state of neighbouring provinces,
and hence they have always a ray of .
hope. It is therefore desirable-as will be
explained hereafter-that Government should
not display at an early date the relief operations
which it intends to nndertake. This remark
applies only to the Administrative as distin-