268 THE RELIEF OF THE UNEMPLOYED 



Death by starvation was, indeed, a not improbable 

 contingency for the poorer classes, who were in the 

 habit of supporting themselves by labour ; but that 

 was because they were ' out of work,' and therefore 

 had no money wherewith to buy food, not because 

 there was no food to be bought. 



The improvement in the means of transport was, of 

 course, a gradual process. From the time of Lord 

 Dalhousie (1848-56) the construction of metalled roads 

 was vigorously prosecuted ; the Upper Ganges Canal 

 (for navigation as well as irrigation) was opened in 

 1854, and by 1861 the East India Railway had reached 

 as far (from Calcutta) as Cawnpore. Of the effects 

 of these modest beginnings we have evidence in the 

 famine of 1860-61, the first famine with regard to 

 which we have a detailed report (by Colonel Baird 

 Smith). This report gives a graphic account of the 

 condition of the country at the beginning of the second 

 epoch. Colonel Baird Smith has recorded the de- 

 velopment of the grain trade in those days under the 

 stimulus of high prices. * The profits,' he wrote, ' to 

 be realized in the grain trade [were] excessive. While 

 wheat was selling in Agra, Muttra, Allyghur, and 

 Meerut at about 4 rupees per maund, it was selling in 

 the adjoining districts of the Lower Doab at 2 rupees, 

 and in remoter districts, east of the Ganges and west 

 of the Jumna, at from 14 annas to R. 1/4 per maund. 

 The remotest points from which I have reliable evi- 

 dence of supplies having been drawn are — to the 

 south-eastward, the Benares division, from whence 

 Agra received considerable quantities ; to the south- 

 westward, the Saugor and Jubbulpoor territories, 

 Gualior and Dholepoor, which have helped to feed 

 Muttra and Delhi. . . . The whole line of the Ganges 

 from Allahabad to Farruckabad was crossed by scores 

 of streams of food, not large individually, but in the 

 aggregate swelling to a great amount, and pouring 

 the surplus stores of favourably situated tracts in 



