1904-5.] THE CAUSES OF FAMINES IN INDIA. 27 
tions she produces more than food enough for all her people. If her 
agricultural possibilities were properly developed, she could easily support 
a greatly increased population. There are enormous areas of waste land 
that ought to be subdued and brought under cultivation. In the Province 
of Assam alone there are several millions of acres of such land, now wholly 
unoccupied largely because of unfavourable health conditions. Sir Henry 
Cotton, late Chief Commissioner of Assam, who has made a careful study 
of the matter, urges that all that is necessary to make these great areas fit 
for habitation and cultivation, is proper drainage. Nor is Assam peculiar 
in possessing unoccupied lands. The Hon. D. M. Hamilton in his speech 
in the Viceroy’s Council on the Indian Budget of 1904, declared that there 
are a hundred million acres of cultivable waste land still available in 
India.* In these very large reclaimable areas, and in the opportunities 
for the extension of irrigation already referred to, we have ample provision 
for any possible increase of population in India for a hundred years. 
But beyond these there is another resource greater still. -Indian 
agriculture is for the most part primitive and superficial. The Indian 
ryot, or small farmer, is industrious and faithful, but he tills his soil accord- 
ing to methods that are two or three thousand years old. The result is he 
raises crops which are only a fraction of what they might be under im- 
proved methods of tillage. Long ago Sir James Caird, urging upon the 
Indian government the importance of promoting improved methods of 
agriculture, called attention to the fact that a single additional bushel 
per acre raised by the ryot would mean food for another 22,000,000 of 
people. But the addition of a bushel an acre is only the mere beginning 
of what might be done. Mr. A. O. Hume, long connected officially with 
the agriculture of India, declared that ‘‘with proper manuring and proper 
tillage, every acre, broadly speaking, of the land in the country can be 
made to yield thirty, fifty or seventy per cent. more of every kind of crop 
. than it at present produces.” Here is a resource that is practically in- 
exhaustible. Add this to the others named, and we see at once that the 
suggestion that population is outstripping agricultural possibilities, and 
therefore that famines are inevitable, becomes hardly better than ludi- 
crous. 
THE POVERTY OF THE PEOPLE. 
What then is the cause of the famines in India? The answer to this 
question has been already suggested, and it becomes increasingly clear 
the more we investigate. The real cause of Indian famines is the extreme 
poverty of the people,—a poverty so severe that it keeps a majority of 
* Indian statistical tables of the year 1897-8 give the amount of cultivable land at present, waste 
or unused, as 106,539,103 acres. 
