INDIAN FAMINES - Institute for Social and Economic Change

}!lTIGA TIVE MEASURES. 213
is quite sufficient to say that they are being
extended as far as the resources of India will
permit; but it must be remembered that these
resources have limits. I have looked over the
files of the 'Saturday Review' for its critiques
on passing events during late famines, and I
find that the cry for extension of irrigation
schemes was strong; it was the sine qua 'Mn,
not only as a safeguard against famines, but
as a mainstay of the resources of the country.
"Civilised India," the' Review' wrote, on 13th
April 1861, "has not even kept on a level with
the human intelligence of the earlier despots
of India; and while money could be found
for any war, just or unjust, none-or at least
nothing adequate to the necessity-was ever
forthcoming £0 apply the fertilising streams
of the country to their natural purpose of
increasing the productions of the soil. By investments
which would have brought in untold
profit to ourselves, we might have blessed India
with perpetual plenty, and saved her people
the suffering, and ourselves the shame, of such
a calamity as that which is so strongly moving
the compassion of all classes. . . . When