INDIAN FAMINES - Institute for Social and Economic Change

RECENT FAMINES.
jts part, and to suggest the many ameliorating
influences which it was possible to adopt.
But it was different in the famine of 1837-38,
at which period we have now arrived. Although
this famine did not penetrate to Bengal-the
province which the East India Company were
appointed to the fiscal administration of in
1765-yet we had been there gaining experience
in dealing with the peculiarities of our
Eastern possessions. By 1837 we had tided
over some seventy years of government in that
neighbouring province; and we had been in
possession of the" Ceded Provinces," where this
famine prevailed in its greatest intensity, since
the beginning of the century. Moreover, we
had passed through some seven years of scarcity,
and therefOl·e we have every right to look
for some marked improvement in the management
of such calamities.
I shall have occasion to notice several times
the frequent recurrence of two or more bad
seasons in succession culminating in famine.
It may be said of the dearth of 1837-38, that
it was not the result of two bad seasons only,
but of a succession of indifferent harvests from