INDIAN FAMINES - Institute for Social and Economic Change

178 ~])MIXISTRATIVE MANAGEME1'lT.
with the famine. By all means let England
demand the strictest account of the action of
those officials, and of the reasons which guided
it. No officer can shirk the terrible responsibility
which attaches to such a crisis. But the
pressure placed by the English press on officers
to act, not according to local evidence, but according
to the importunate demands of English
sentiment, is now reaching almost to an uncontrollable
point. It will be a fatal day for
British rule in India when the Civil Service
first learns to bow its head before the outburst
of distant public opinion, and receives its firSL
lesson in acting, not according to actual facts,
but to suit the exigencies of panic. The present
calamity is sufficiently real, and the responsibility
sufficiently solemn, without an::"
such appeals to a personal and ignoble desire
to be on the safe side, at whatever cost to the
country."
As I have already written, I cannot, in these
pages, analyse all the criticism made on the
management of the present famine j and there
is, therefore, much left unnoticed.