44 ° 
Famines in India . 
[October, 
grain transport ; assistance was given to bond fide importers 
of grain, with loans of money without interest ; a number 
of relief works were commenced, on which wages to labourers 
were authorised to be paid in grain whenever the local price 
reached famine rates ; storehouses for Government grain 
were constructed on all the chief works ; and other facilities 
were provided for the transport and distribution of food 
through the ordinary channels of trade, or through the 
agency of Relief Committees. 
Little need be said here of the recent great famine in 
Madras and Bombay. In 1875 the season was in many 
places unpropitious, and in the following year the south- 
west monsoon was deficient throughout the greater part of 
the Madras Presidency and in portions of Bombay. In 
Madras, famine first threatened in July, 1876, whilst in 
October the whole of the nine districts of the Bombay 
Deccan were seriously threatened, nearly all the monsoon 
crops having perished, and there having been no later rains 
to admit of sowing the rabi. The spring and summer rains 
again failed in 18 77, and the distress became still greater gene- 
rally throughout the affeCted districts. The relief measures 
adopted by Government, and through private agency, have 
so recently formed the subject of report and discussion in 
the daily papers that any repetition on that point seems 
unnecessary here. 
We now turn from the foregoing brief historical summary 
to a consideration of the scientific side of the question. 
This divides itself into two heads, viz. (1), the causes of 
famines; and (2), the means to be adopted for averting 
them, on the one hand, or of mitigating their effects, on the 
other. 
A close examination into all the circumstances of past 
famines shows that they have not been caused by the failure 
of rains in one season only. The stocks of grain ordinarily 
reserved in the country would appear to be sufficient, gene- 
rally, to carry the people over a single season of drought, 
and consequently of deficient harvest ; but when a famine 
occurs it'has been the result of one or two consecutive bad 
seasons, followed by one of unusual drought; and experience 
thus teaches that the probable advent of a famine may be 
anticipated, with at any rate sufficient exactness to enable 
precautionary measures to be adopted in anticipation, with 
a view to meeting the emergency should it arise. For- 
tunately, India is capable of supplying far more food than 
is required for the maintenance of her populations, even in 
ordinary seasons, and as droughts occur only locally, and 
