304 



INDIA. 



of wheat is produced annually, was only 65 per 

 cent, of what was harvested this year. In the Cen- 

 tral Provinces, where 18,000,000 bushels of wheat 

 are raised on the average, this and most other 

 crops failed entirely, and in Bombay only a third 

 of the average wheat crop of 19,000,000 bushels 

 was obtained, and other crops show a like defi- 

 ciency. In Berar the crops were almost a total 

 failure. The relief was divided between Bombay, 

 the Punjab, the Central Provinces, Berar, Ajmere, 

 Rajputana, Central India, the Bombay native 

 states, and Baroda, and later relief works were 

 started in the Central Indian native states, the 

 Northwest Provinces, and the Punjab native 

 states. The true famine area covered over 300,000 

 square miles, with a population of 40,000,000, 

 while the area of scarcity and distress extended 

 over 150,000 square miles more and affected 25,- 

 000.000 or 30,000,000 persons. 



Although the provincial authorities had not yet 

 readjusted their local systems in accordance with 

 the suggestions of the commission appointed to 

 digest the experiences of the famine of 1897, the 

 methods of public relief were more promptly and 

 efficaciously applied in 1900 because the machinery 

 was already in working order and the officials 

 were trained in the famine code. Mortality in 

 many of the worst districts, as in the Central 

 Provinces, was kept down to figures only a little 

 above the normal. In some isolated areas, how- 

 ever, where the distress was acute, where desti- 

 tute immigrants streamed across the boundary 

 from native states, and where cholera and other 

 diseases attacked the frames already emaciated by 

 privation, the death rate was abnormally high, 

 and in some of the native states it was appalling. 

 The appearance of cholera in the famine camps 

 caused a large proportion of the people on the 

 relief works to flee. When the famine reached the 

 acutest stage in June, notwithstanding the flight 

 of numbers to perish of hunger outside and the 

 mortality in the camps from disease, the relief 

 camps contained over 6,500,000 people. The total 

 population affected grew to 95,000,000. 



The Indian Government advanced to the native 

 states Rx 503,800 to aid them in combating the 

 famine, besides a loan of Rx 1,000,000 to the state 

 of Hyderabad, and granted Rx 1,228,800 to the 

 provincial governments to loan out to cultivators 

 on easy terms. The provincial authorities had 

 also Rx 64,500 of charitable funds with which to 

 buy seed and cattle to give to the poorest villagers 

 and to provide for their needs until they could 

 harvest a crop. The ravages of the cholera in Bom- 

 bay and Rajputana, added to the mortality from 

 starvation, literally decimated the population in 

 the hilly tracts, and among the Bhils, who were 

 with difficulty induced to enter or to stay in the 

 relief camps, 40 per cent, of the people are be- 

 lieved to have perished. Although the contribu- 

 tions from the British public were smaller than 

 could have been expected, popular subscriptions 

 from the United States and Germany and from 

 China and the Straits Settlements came as un- 

 cxp-cted windfalls to eke out the charitable funds. 



When the summer rains came and the famine 

 camps began to diminish it is estimated that 

 1,000,000 people had died of starvation or had 

 been carried off by cholera, dysentery, the plague, 

 and smallpox as a result of the famine and that 

 1,000,000 more were so emaciated that they would 

 not have the strength to recover. There were 

 500,000 orphaned and homeless children, and 90 

 per cent, of the cattle had perished in the famine 

 districts. The Government fixed the wages on the 

 relief works at 1^ anna, equal to 3 cents, for nine 

 hours of labor in breaking stone, building reser- 



voirs, or making roads. Such a low rate made the 

 Government money go further, and avoided all 

 danger of pauperizing the people. The measures 

 adopted for enabling the ryots to replant the 

 ground when the rain came in parts of western 

 India the first rain in two years save one brief 

 shower were more complete than after the last 

 or any previous famine. The advances to working 

 cultivators and to those who employ laborers were 

 made without interest for a year, and the money 

 will not be reclaimed at the end of this term if 

 its recovery entails eviction or hardship. By the 

 end of June the area of scarcity covered 417,000 

 square miles, with a population of over 100,000,- 

 000, of whom 10,000,000 were absolutely destitute, 

 7,000,000 of them in the famine camps and the rest 

 too proud to accept relief or be dependent on pri- 

 vate charity. The famine death rate was 4,000 a 

 day. The expenditure of the Government for relief 

 amounted to Rx 28,800,000. Government relief 

 was administered ( 1 ) by giving payment in money 

 or food for work in the great relief camps; (2) by 

 remitting the rent collected from cultivators under 

 the land settlement; (3) by establishing poor- 

 houses, hospitals, and kitchens for the sick and 

 debilitated, delicate and nursing women, children, 

 and aged people; and (4) by advancing money for 

 the purchase of seed and cattle. The first crops 

 were gathered in the middle of September. The 

 number of persons on the famine w r orks had then 

 dwindled to a little over 1,000,000, but 2,500,000 

 were still receiving gratuitous relief. The mon- 

 soon was an unusually good one, and abundant 

 food crops were obtained. 



The Plague. The bubonic plague, endemic in 

 parts of Mesopotamia, in certain Himalayan val- 

 leys, and for the last thirty years in the moun- 

 tain villages of Yunnan, was carried in 1894 down 

 the West river to Canton and Hong-Kong, and 

 from the latter place by sea to Bombay. For five 

 centuries no plague epidemic, except isolated out- 

 breaks, has extended east of Persia until this last 

 one. The disease has reappeared at the accus- 

 tomed season in Bombay and the other parts of 

 western India where its first ravages were experi- 

 enced for several successive years, and has come 

 to be regarded by the medical and governmental 

 authorities as endemic and not to be stamped 

 out, but by sanitation and cleanliness to be kept 

 under control. The area of its visitations has 

 gradually spread into the mountain regions of the 

 north and to the eastward. Calcutta, being a 

 great seaport, was liable to an outbreak at any 

 time, more so than the ports of Asia, Africa, and 

 Europe into which the disease has been introduced. 

 The Government endeavored to guard against it 

 by cleaning the slums, but at the approach of 

 the wet season in 1899 the plague appeared. 

 The preparations to hold it in check and to pre- 

 vent it from spreading into the country were as 

 much completer than they were at Bombay as 

 forethought and experience could dictate, and for 

 a time they seemed to be effective. Before the 

 winter ended the infection passed the barriers and 

 invaded Patna and other districts of Behar, while 

 still confined to two wards in Calcutta, where the 

 Government promptly disinfected every house that 

 was attacked. In March the mortality rose in 

 Bengal to nearly 5.000 a week, exceeding that of 

 all the rest of India. Two fifths of the deaths 

 were in Patna, less than a sixth in Calcutta. The 

 precautions taken in Patna having provoked the 

 people to tumult, the Government gave way to 

 their wishes by intrusting the duty of detecting 

 and reporting imported cases to their leading men, 

 whose systematic concealment of such cases was 

 responsible for the great mortality. A commission 



