INDIAN FAMINES - Institute for Social and Economic Change

46 RECENT FAMINES.
were not much mended, and a. severe crisis was
the result. Lord Auckland, noticing this feature
in a letter" to the Court of Directors, wrote :
" Large numbers of persons were apprehended on
the charge of being concerned in these outrages;
the local magistrates consequently became overburthened
with work, while Session judges were
unable to dispose of the commitments which were
made to them." Tranquillity, however, was
restored. Such manifest signs of demoralisation
were the means of causing the-Government
to devise effective measures of relief-i.e., eft'ective
measures in a. relative, not in an absolute
sense, as would be understood and insisted
upon in modem da.ys. The several Commissioners
of the affected districts were authorised
to expend a certain sum on relief-works;. and
this authority, which was gradually extended as
the severity increased, developed a. system of
relief, the basis of which we may say has been
adopted in all subsequent famines, and which appears
now in our elaborate system of relief. Notwithstanding
that the Government recognised
this duty of relieving the distressed by providing
• Date 18th Feb. 1838.