food"— Lord G. Hamilton, former Secretary of State.
Causes of Famines. 1. National industries deliberately crushed by the East India Co. cannot revive under existing conditions.
2. Annual drain of India.
3. Lack of such education as will enable people to develop their resources.
Drain. Montgomery Martin. “ The annual drain of £3,000,000 from British India has mounted in thirty years,at 12 per cent, (the usual Indian rate) compound interest,to the enormous sum of £723,900,000 sterling.”— Montgomery Martin.(In 1830.)
Digby. “ During the last thirty years of the century the average drain cannot have been far short of £30,000,000 per year, or, in the thirty years, £900,000,000, not reckoning interest! ”— Sir William Digby.
Enormous Foreign Tribute. Rev. J. T. Sunderland. Rev. J. T, Sunderland in his work “ The Causes of Famine in India,” like all impartial writers, has conclusively proved that neither “ failure of rains ” nor “ over population ” is the cause of famines in India.
He has stated that the real cause of famine is the extreme, the abject, the awful poverty of the Indian people caused by “ Enormous Foreign Tribute,” “British Indian Imperialism ” and the destruction of Indian industries.
Government assessment too high. Sir W. Hunter. “ The government assessment does not leave enough food to the cultivator to support himself and his family throughout the year.”— Sir William Hunter, K. C. S. I., in the Viceroy’s Council, 1883.
The Ryot. Herbert Compton. “There is no more pathetic figure in the British Empire than the Indian peasant. His masters have ever been unjust to him. He is ground until everything has been expressed, except the marrow of his bones.”—Mr. Herbert Compton in “ Indian Life,” 1904.
