INDIAN FAMINES - Institute for Social and Economic Change

HISTORIOAL FAMINES.
hereafter, that this will be the most appropriate
place for a description of them. The only value
which they possessed in former days arose from
the fact that communications were bad, and that,
therefore, export and import on a large scale in
an emergency were next to impossible. The
converse is the case now: communications are
good, and trade requires export and import,
and renders a large standing grain-store an
impossibility.
Such a measure as extensive storing of grain.
of course only afforded local relief: but· in
mentioning this fact, we should remember that
a Sultan's country was not then of the vast extent
that British India now is, and that he was
surrounded by chiefs and tribes who were as
foreign to him as China is to India at the present
day; and that, therefore, his policy would
be regulated by the principle that "charity
begins at home."
Sultan Ala-ud-din, during his reign (1296
to 1317 A.D.), was harassed with a want which
is by no means unknown even in modern days
-he wished to maintain "a large and permanent
army upon a low scale of pay." His