[ 858 ] 



surplus food goes out into foreign countries, a bad year brings 

 sudden distress, which is not relieved by indigenous commer- 

 cial enterprise bringing food stuff in, from foreign sources, as 

 would be the case in more civilized countries. The native 

 grain-dealer does not trouble himself about the price of grain in 

 Australia, Canada, or Cape Colony, when a bad year comes 

 round, and he in common with the cultivator looks to Govern 

 ment for means of subsistence to be brought to his very 

 doors. The need for emigration also is not felt yet except in 

 special localities. But in another 20 years, the question of 

 emigration into other part of the Empire may have to be 

 more seriously taken up, and then India must make com- 

 mon cause with England and try to be recognised as an 

 integral part of the Empire, looking upon the sparsely popu- 

 lated portions of the Empire as the natural field for her ex- 

 pansion. By assisting in the foreign wars of the Empire, 

 and by common political sympathies with the heart of the 

 Empire, and not by the encouragement of merely national 

 or racial feelings, that India can hope to be recognised as an 

 integral part of the Empire, with equal rights and privileges 

 with England in the matter of Colonial expansion. The 

 time will come when the right political attitude will be 

 forced by necessity upon the intellects and consciences of 

 the leaders of Indian thought, who can still afford to indulge 

 in the idea that India's resources make her quite independent 

 of such ideas of colonial expansion with which the nations 

 of Europe are per force guided, compelling them to seek 

 fresh fields and pastures new in sparsely populated regions 

 of the globe. What is now recognized as the ' Imperial 

 feeling ' is neither a bye-word nor a mistake, but a con- 

 crete necessity, which English politicians of all schools of 

 thought are beginning to realise, must be the solid found- 

 ation of that vast Empire to which we have the privilege 

 to belong. 



1,442. The cause of famines is, as is well known, the 



