THE INDIA FAMINE | AdventAI

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Nov 29, 1877

THE INDIA FAMINE.

It is creditable both to the humanity and the statesmanship of Lord Derby, the English premier, that he considers the India famine as of far more import to England than the Russo-Turkish war. It is the real Eastern question and one not easy of solution. For the fourteenth time in the century, and the fourth time in ten years, millions of people are dying in India of starvation. The cost of allaying the present distress is expected to be $70,000,000, which must be met by taxation or borrowing.

A million dollars have been subscribed by private charity, but the need seems too vast for feeble aims to avail. It seems almost like another national debt. Meantime India is taxed to the utmost, while of her revenue of $95,000,000 seven-eights is wasted on the Indian army in time of peace. Professor Fawcett may well declare that “no language was strong enough to describe the extravagance of that expenditure.” While the irrigating enterprises of the native princes achieve their purposes, those of the English engineers are failures, and entail an annual loss of £400,000. Nothing but early investigation and prompt measures will save India from ruin under English domination.—The True Citizen.