1904-5.] THE CAUSES OF FAMINES IN INDIA. 221 
officials of the Indian Government, it is plain that we have the real cause 
of famines in India. That cause is not lack of rain; and it is not over- 
population. It is the extreme, the abject, the awful poverty of the people. 
CAUSES OF THE IMPOVERISHMENT OF THE PEOPLE. 
And now we come to the deepest, the crucial question of all. Why 
does this terrible poverty exist? Is it necessary? Is there no remedy 
for it? India is a land rich in resources beyond most other lands in the 
world. It would seem as if her people ought to live in plenty, comfort and 
security, with ample and more than ample provision made in her many 
fat years against any possible lack in her few years of comparative leanness. 
Why does not the fatness of her fat years prevent suffering and starvation 
in the lean? . 
Fortunately, here too an answer is not difficult to find when once we 
begin really to look for it. The intelligent and educated classes among 
the Indian people all see it clearly. Many Englishmen see it, both in 
India and in England. It will throw light upon our inquiry if I quote 
some utterances from Englishmen best acquainted with the Indian situa- 
tion. 
Said John Bright in 1858: ‘‘If a country be found possessing a most 
fertile soil, and capable of bearing every variety of production and that 
notwithstanding the people are in a state of extreme destitution and 
suffering, the chances are there is some fundamental error in the govern- 
ment of that country.”’ 
Much earlier still Edmund Burke declared that British friendship 
had brought greater ruin upon India than the hostility of invaders. Here 
are his strong words: ‘‘The Tartar invasion was mischievous; but it is 
our protection which destroys India.” 
Sir John Shore, who afterward became Governor-General of India, 
as long ago as 1787, made a careful study of the effects of foreign rule in 
India, and in an extended paper on the subject said: ‘‘There is reason to 
conclude that the benefits are more than counterbalanced by evils in- 
separable from the system of a remote foreign dominion.”’ 
Bishop Heber, in March, 1826, writing of his experience in India, 
laid great stress upon the heavy taxation, and said: ‘‘It is an effectual 
bar to everything like improvement; it keeps the people, even in favour- 
able years, in a state of abject penury; and when the crop fails, in even a 
slight degree, it involves a necessity on the part of the government, of 
enormous outlays in the way of remission and distribution, which, after 
