§ No praise can be too high for the splendid work of the local officers in combating famine. It is a splendid record of administrative philanthropy, and all noted with pleasure the exceptional honour which Her Majesty was pleased to bestow on Sir Antony MacDonnell, on whom fell heavier labours and greater responsibility than on any other official superintending famine operations. One illustration of the excellent management and organisation, is that, although there were at one time more than one million of persons receiving relief or in relief camps in the North-West Provinces, Sir Antony MacDonnell so employed the people themselves in maintaining order, that it was not necessary to increase the ordinary police force of the North-West by the addition of a single constable. The appeal made at the commencement of the year for subscriptions in Great Britain and the rest of the Empire, met with a response of extraordinary generosity. The total amount subscribed in Great Britain, India, and elsewhere, amounted to the largest sum ever collected in connection with any Indian object. Some valuable reports will be published giving details of the administration and distribution of this fund. These reports, and those emanating from the officials in charge of relief, will, no doubt, offer many excellent suggestions, and I have little doubt that out of the experience of the present year such an improvement will be made in the already effective famine code as will make its administration in any future famine as great an improvement upon the work of this year as this year's work was upon the administration of 20 years back. But in connection with famine and plague administration there is one fact to which I feel bound to 432 call prominent attention. It is only in times of emergency and difficulty that it is possible to test the reserve latent strength in any given executive system of administration. It was soon found that the pivot upon which everything depended in any large administrative district was the European officer. Wherever that element was absent it had to be supplied, thus confirming the almost universal experience of preceding emergencies, which show that a mere capacity for passing a competitive examination, cannot compensate for those qualities which are inherent in or are obtained from race, training, or instinct.