212 



Notes on the Diitj/ of Government 



[ApHil 



the ryots, or from the limited area over w]ii!*h the drought extends (as it 

 is probable is the case at present in the Northern Circars). The means of 

 alleviation, and of staying off famine are accessible to the great bulk of the 

 population. 



That Dr. Smith's doctrine can only be justly applied to such cases, 

 will I think be farther evident, upon consideration of the arguments ad- 

 vanced in its support by himself and Dr. Chalmers, who has followed 

 out his views at length,* both laving much stress, upon the natural alle- 

 viations, or the palliatives to scarcity, at all times within the reach of the 

 people of Europe. 



They observe, that the variety of soil and climate greatly modifies the 

 effect of bad seasons, that there are substitutes for the food of man in 

 the grain raised for cattle, (and we might add a certainty in the tempe- 

 rate zone of a supply of water for animal life), that the larfTe amount of 

 the external commerce of the dilFerent states of Europe, gives to each a 

 command at all times over the products of the other, and that these, 

 with other alleviating circumstances, amply secure the inhabitant of 

 Europe against absolute famine or starvation. So elective indeed are 

 these palliatives in Europe immediately within the reach of the peo- 

 ple, and so dissimilar is Europe an dearth, from Indian or tropical 

 famine; that whilst M'e number deaths by tens of thousands in a few 

 months. Dr. Chalmers hesitates not to affirm (see his late Bridgewater 

 Treatise. " On the moral and intellectual constitution of ma i" vol. II, 

 p. 46) *' that the country em ^rges from the visitation of dearth, without 

 in aV prohabil'ty, thz starvaiion of one ind' iduaL'* And again at p. 

 49. *' It is in these various, ways that a country is found to survive so 

 well its hardest and heaviest visitation, and even unJera triple price 

 " for the first articles of subsistence, it has been found to emerge into 

 prosperity again, without an authentic instance of starvation throughout 

 all its families." These passages must I think carry conviction of a 

 truth, which I am anxious to establish, of the first importance in this 

 enquiry — that there is nothing parallel in the case under the review of 

 Smith, Chalmers, and other political economists of Europe, to the cir- 

 cumstances before us in India: and I would rest my first objection to 

 the unlimited application of the principle of non-interference in 

 periods of famine in South India, on the manifest dissimilarity between 

 the circumstances of dearth in the two countries. 



Should this objection be considered of any weight, we may then be 

 permitted to question, whether the authority of Adam Smith's great 

 name, can properly be thrown into the scale in favour of the doctrine of 

 non-interference, in the peculiar exigency of famine by the fault of the 



* See Dr. Chalmers' Political Economy, and his late Bridgewater Treatise. 



