254 THE INTERRUPTION OF INDUSTRY 



showed by a statistical computation that ' the total 

 carriage of the provinces — i.e., bullock carts, ekkas, 

 pack-bullocks, etc. — would not suffice to carry one- 

 tenth of the 800,000 tons required to feed the Rohil- 

 khand division alone'; and in 1867 Mr. Girdlestone, 

 summarizing the lessons of previous famines, insisted 

 upon the futility of attempting to supply the deficiency 

 of the harvests by importations. Both these officers 

 wrote when the construction of metalled roads had 

 been in process for a number of years, and therefore 

 it is easy to imagine how much greater must have 

 been the difficulties of transport when there were no 

 metalled roads at all in the country. 



It is, however, useless to elaborate the point ; 

 whether we rightly appreciate the difficulties of trans- 

 port in those days, or whether we do not, the fact 

 remains that grain was not imported into famine- 

 stricken districts. Historical evidence establishes 

 beyond challenge the fact that the people either died 

 of hunger in their homes, or wandered into neighbour- 

 ing provinces in search of food. 



It is sometimes asserted that stores of grain were 

 preserved in towns and villages, and that these were 

 sufficient to mitigate the distress which would other- 

 wise have been occasioned by the failure of the harvest. 

 That some grain was so stored is probable, and the 

 practice which has survived into the present day of 

 buying supplies of corn shortly after harvest, is an 

 indication that such provision was considered wise in 

 earlier days. But the contention that the amount 

 stored was sufficient to mitigate famine is absolutely 

 disproved by the evidence. The price-lists of food- 

 grains conclusively demonstrate that grain was not 

 stored in large quantities. The characteristic of the 

 price-lists of this period is violent fluctuation. Had 

 large stores of grain been preserved they would have 

 equalized prices, whereas what we actually observe is 

 that as soon as the failure of the harvest was pro- 



