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Imperial Gazetteer of India, v. 3, p. 477.

x] FAIILE 477 and again employs millions of labourers. Intermediate crops, such as sugar-cane and the late cotton, also employ large numbers. Thus, any failure of the rains involves some failure of crops, Cause of thereby reducing the supply of food and stopping the demand famine. for labour. But not every failure of the rains causes famine. The people are not generally dependent on the out-turn of a single harvest. The railways have put the whole food-supply of the country into circulation, and what is lost in one part of the country is made good from another. The cultivators have some resources and credit. The spring harvest may be good although the autumn harvest has failed. The agricultural labourers are safe so long as there is a demand for labour, and there are various degrees of crop failure with varying effect upon the labour market. A widespread failure of either har- vest will cause distress, especially to the agricultural labourers; but it depends on several conditions, such as the character of preceding harvests, and the degree in which agricultural opera- tions are affected, whether the distress will amount to famine. II. The Famine Problems, and Jl/odern Relief Formerly war, rapine, and misrule were direct causes of Removal famine. These have disappeared and in the process a new c nhefkfon problem has arisen. Peace has multiplied the people. The popula- custom of the country favours early marriage, while the general tion. security has removed the old checks on population. And as those who have least hope in the world usually bring most children into it, the increase of population has been great among the poorer cultivators and the agricultural labourers. The modern outlets, emigration and industrial development, afford as yet little relief. Large tracts in India still await population, but the inhabitants of congested districts will not move to them, partly from habit, but largely from regard to caste and language. Industries are growing up, but as yet they draw only small numbers off the land, occupation being still prescribed by inheritance and tradition. Pressure, there- fore, increases where it is already greatest. Holdings already small are subdivided, or sublet at competition rents, while the supply of agricultural labour outruns the demand for it, and so keeps agricultural wages low. This is the great famine problem. It is not in the power of Statement man to prevent drought in India, or, so long as the country is of the mainly agricultural, to perevet drought from causing famine mainly agricultural, to l)revent drought from causing famine: problem.