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idea it is sound economy to suffer a whole district 

 to be devastated, and hundreds of thousands of 

 poor people to perish with hunger, or be utterly 

 ruined. Famines, the visitation of God, are of 

 too frequent occurrence in India to create a very 

 lasting impression, but their frequency and their 

 severity, renders it all the more imperative that every 

 protection that sympathy can suggest or human 

 ingenuity can devise, should be afforded to the people 

 against sufferings which, if all, are powerless to pre- 

 vent, might yet by some means be alleviated. 

 From the badness of present means of intercom- 

 munication in India, we are often compelled to 

 witness the singular and sad phenomenon, of plenty 

 reigning in one province, and famine raging in 

 another. Much has been done, and more is being 

 done by the Indian Government, to ameliorate the 

 circumstances of the country in this respect : but 

 it has often occurred to me to think, that a question 

 bearing so directly on the material prosperity of 

 the nation, and so interwoven with the welfare of 

 millions of Her Majesty's subjects, might be 

 placed on a different basis to that which it usually 

 occupies ; and that it would be well for competent 

 persons to examine, whether the outlay that would 

 be required to cover India with a network of 

 roads and irrigation canals, is not already exceeded 

 by the immense amount of wealth annually, and 

 >r ever, lost to the country, by those fearful visita- 



