FAMINE IN RUSSIA AND INDIA.
There is plenty of money in the world for carrying on war, but not sufficient, it seems, for alleviating the horrors and distress of starvation. Here comes the announcement from Lord Curzon that another famine is impending in India, in fact has already begun, and the immediate expenditure of one crore of rupees (about $3,300,000) is necessary; in addition to the remission of large land revenues. Thus India, which has not recovered from the last famine, which covered two-thirds of its territory, is brought face to face with another calamity of the same kind; and with a large part of its population still weakened by the sufferings of last year it must be that the mortality in the regions affected will be unusually great even for that country. Then there is Russia, from which country comes ominous news. We are told, on authority of the Imperial Government, that in Kherson, Smolensk, and Tomsk there has been an entire failure of crops, and that great distress stares the people in the face. Not only so, but the same conditions prevail in Bessarabia, Kief, Podolia, and Taurida—the whole southwestern corner of European Russia, with an area as large as New York State and a population much greater. There are, therefore, seven semi-destitute provinces, having a population of between eleven and twelve millions, scattered over an area nearly one-third as great as that of the United States. Such is the appalling state of Russia; to which we may doubtless add those usual companions of famine—typhus and typhoid fevers. No wonder the government feels moved to make an appeal for private charity to supplement its aid. Is it academic to say that if there was not so much war there would be less—indeed there might be no—starvation? But preaching now would be in vain. At present it is better to the purpose to point the need of alms, lest millions perish of famine and fever like flies when the frost comes. But the times accent the prayer of the poet, “Give to us peace in Thy time, O Lord.” —Christian Work.