Such plans have been often laid before the Government of India; and, no doubt, some time will be adopted.
One effect of the famine may be predicted, and that is, that it will lead to a revolution in the Zemindarry system in Bengal; which, in its effects on the mass of the population, can be compared to one thing only, namely, the slavery system as it was in the United States.
Pecuniary loss in labourers' deaths exceeds cost of works.8. The wealth of an agricultural country is the result of labour; and, in a properly governed country, labour ought always to be producing wealth.
Every efficient labourer is a wealth-producing agent; and every efficient labourer, lost by death, is a pecuniary loss to the country.
These are truisms.
The people pay 2½ rupees per head in taxes—the interest of 50 rupees, sufficient to irrigate 2 acres, which would support 5 people: and in actual famine 10 rupees would certainly provide food per head through the famine.
Scarcity and famine act in two ways; they reduce the wealth-producing power of survivors, and destroy the wealth-producing power of those who die.
When labourers die by thousands on account of famine and epidemics, because the ground on which they existed was left without irrigation and drainage, it may be affirmed with certainty that the pecuniary loss to the country exceeds what would have been the cost of works.
