FYZ
420
are late the holders keep back their stocks^ There is little labour required for the kharif harvest, and July and August have been, for five out of the last six years, months of scarcity either of food or of labour, or of both. as the indebtedness of the peasantry or of the landlords in previous Causes of famme. jeaxs, high prices in other provinces, but mainly by bad crops. These are the causes. The first result is that there is little or no labour for the farm servants, who form probably a sixth of the population ; and there is no sale for the weaver's cloth, for the shoeniaker's or pipemaker's wares. These men temporarily emigrate, or live on loans from the banians or from the better class of cultivators, or are hired at the public works. So far it is only scarcity. This gradually merges into famine there is no broad line perhaps panic is the only feature of famine which is
Famines are therefore caused by secondary causes, such
wholly absent from scarcity.
As famine is aggravated, a larger and larger class of cultivators is left without grain, dependent upon the landlords and the grain-dealers. These nearly always have enough to last till the next harvest with more or less pinching. They calculate how much the daily food oif their constituents must be reduced in order that the stock in hand may last tiU next harvest, and they weigh out the rations accordingly. The prices rise no doubt, but not to anything like the extent they would do in Europe under similar circumstances. The banian's profit depends on his keeping most of his constituents alive. If any die of starvation the debt is wiped out if most live, the grain he advanced at famine rates is repaid him at harvest prices with a percentage.
At
present, March 1st, 1874, in this division there is plenty of grain at 16 the rupee, but there is no labour, nor money for the wages fund, so there is scarcity, which would be downright famine if it were not for the benevolence of Government. This, then, is really famine in backward districts, where there are hardly any local grain-dealers; but it is purely local, caused by the destruction of the one staple crop and the absence of previous accumulations in the hands of the grain-dealers. sers
In January and February, Government in Utraula and the north of Gonda was spending nearly Rs. 500 per day, employing about Government action in 6,000 persons at the wage of One anna per day for adult excavators, its ordinary wages being two annas. This
is still scarcity
only because supplies of grain are freely forwarded
by the dealers if the latter began to look forward with apprehension to the future, it would be famine and this, I think, is the main distinction between the two. If they became hopeless of their stock lasting till the next harvest, they would close accounts with those who owed them least, and reserve all their stock for the support of those whose survival would benefit them the most. If to bad crops in the previous harvest and scarcity of grain at the time there is added dread for the future, then, not only all the
labourers, but a large portion of the indebted cultivators, probably a third of the population, find the grain-dealer's door suddenly shut in their faces, and famine leaps up at once in all its appalling proportions. But there can hardly be panic, no matter what may be the scarcity, except during the "
Khffi
fasl," i.
e.,
from June to September,
Government, except during
