INDIAN FAMINES - Institute for Social and Economic Change

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ADMINISTRATIVE MANAGEMENT
supply of each individual; and 7. contingencies
for loss by accident, such as fire, damp,
and other misfortunes attendant on the actions
of fallible man.
No.1. is dependent directly on emigration,
w hlch will vary according to the character of
the people and the nature of the surrounding
country. In the famine of 1860-61, 500,000
people are estimated, out of a population of
13,000,000, to have emigrated during the time
when famine pressed most severely. A special
reference to this feature of temporary emigration
will be found at page 204, in the chapter
on Preventive and Mitigative Measures.
No.2. is an item by no means easy to determine
accurately. A large proportion of the agricultural
classes, both rich and poor, keep stocks
of grain for their own private consumption;
but this I do not refer to at present-I mean
the practice of hoarding grain to apply more
especially to the grain-merchants who, in their
ordinary course of business, speculate in this
way. The evidence given in the Orissa famine
points to a strange leaning towards the idea of
vast quantities of grain being thus kept in the