242 THE INTERRUPTION OF INDUSTRY 



i.e., the suspension of the agricultural industry, with 

 consequent distress and want of employment among 

 the labouring classes. 



Owing to the number of persons involved and the 

 severity of their sufferings, famines form very distinct 

 and prominent landmarks in the industrial history of 

 India. Great and devastating famines like those of 

 1783 and 1837 dislocated the industry and the popula- 

 tion of whole provinces, and their ravages can be 

 traced far down in the subsequent history of the 

 districts affected. But the popular memory is short, 

 and a calamity which was momentous enough to one 

 generation to become the era of rustic annals fades in 

 the memory of their successors, and in the third or 

 fourth generation all knowledge of it is obliterated 

 from the minds of the villagers. Thus we see at the 

 present day that, though the famines and high prices 

 which have occurred within living memory are popu- 

 larly known and frequently referred to, there is no 

 knowledge of the famines of the past, and it is even 

 said that famines are a comparatively modern phe- 

 nomenon. There is no evidence to show that the 

 climate of India has become more precarious, and 

 since agriculture must always depend to a great extent 

 upon climatic conditions, it is difficult to justify the 

 opinion that the agricultural industry of India was 

 not in the past, as in the present, exposed to occasional 

 interruptions — interruptions which would necessarily 

 occasion great distress to those who were thereby 

 thrown out of employment. 



There are two reasons, it ought in fairness to be 

 recognised, why famines appear more prominent in 

 the present than in the past. The first is due to the 

 existence of the telegraph, the postal service and news- 

 papers. These agencies, combined with an elaborate 

 system of official reports, immediately diffuse over the 

 whole of India the knowledge of any famine which 

 may occur in a remote corner of the Empire. The 



