Speeches and Papers on Indian Questions 1897 to 1900

SIXTY years ago, in the very year in which her Majesty the Queen ascended the throne, her Indian Empire, and then managed by the East India Company was desolated by a great famine. The calamity was confined to the North-Western Provinces of India, but the sufferings of the people, as described by eye-witnesses, were truly heartrending. Villagers lay down in hunger by the way side, and died with that silent resignation which is more terrible than the wildest excesses and disorder. And famished men and women in the last stage of exhaustion were attacked and devoured by jackals when they were unable to resist or even to escape. There was practically no organization for famine relief in those days, and Lord Auckland�s Government could do little to mitigate the sufferings or prevent the deaths of the people.