MADRAS JOURNAL 



OF 



LITERATURE AND SCIENCE, 



JSfo. 23— April 1839- 



I.— -Notes on the Duty of Government in periods of Famine. — By lonw 

 F. Thomas, Esq. Madras Civil Service. 

 (Continued from the last Numler pa^e 7S), 



This enquiry,* which on a more extended examination of the subject 

 1 would confine to famine alone, is one at all times of such extreme im- 

 portance to the people, and has acquired so much additional interest from 

 the present circumstances of part of the Northern Circars, that I am in- 

 duced to prosecute it more at length. I am anxious also to avoid amis- 

 eonstruction to which the former remarkst are, I fear, liable; that be- 

 cause I am disposed to question in the present state of Southern India the 

 reasoning, and the principle of the circular order of 1833, deprecating any 

 interference on the part of Government; I would therefore advocate an op- 

 posite course ; and recommend a constant and general tampering with the 

 grain trade of the country. This is far from my intention. The sole ques- 

 tion I would raise, is the propriety of Government interference at periods of 

 great exigency, — at those times only, vAiexi the drought has been general 

 ttver large tracts of country, and there has been a failure of the standard 

 crops throughout a whole province — Vv^hen, in fact, we have either cause 



*" See former brief observations No. XXII. p, 78, viz, " Whether there are not, as 

 Br. Smith seems from his guarded lau^mage to admit, means open to the Government, 

 which may not be improper for it to adopt in periods of drought, by which that most 

 dreadful scourge, the absolute famines which now periodically desolate our provinces, 

 may be wholly prevented, and scarc ity at all times greatly mitigated, without a departure 

 from sound general principles, and at no great charge on the finances of the State," 



t See No. XXII. pp. 71-73. 



