§ The maximum number of persons upon relief at any one time was 4,200,000—a very large number, but not very large in proportion to the population of 250,000,000. ["Hear, hear!"] The 433 number of persons in this country who are permanently in receipt of poor relief is proportionately much greater than the maximum number on relief works during the worst period of the late famine in India. ["Hear, hear!"] I hear from all the officers who were connected with famine administration that they noted with surprise the manner in which the mass of the community withstood the hard times. At the same time I readily admit that the advance in the material prosperity of the individual is checked by the enormous aggregate increase of the population. It is estimated that the increase in India of population is above 2,000,000 a year. India is almost a purely agricultural country, and a cardinal feature in our policy should be to multiply and vary industrial occupations and render this ever-increasing population less dependent upon the vagaries of the rainfall of one year. Now, various suggestions from high authorities have been recently made for the attainment of this object. It is suggested that we should largely alter the system of land tenure, with a view of increasing the period of settlement or of substituting fixity of tenure for the shorter periods now in force. Within the famine area of last year is comprised every conceivable form of land tenure from the zemindaree settlement of Bengal to the ryotwaree settlement of Bombay and Madras; and from inquiries made it is clear that no one particular form of settlement was more effective than another in enabling the people to withstand the pressure of high prices. In 1874 the permanently settled districts of Chumparum and Sarum suffered more severely and had many more people on relief than the neighbouring temporarily settled district of Goruckpore. In the present famine the temporarily settled district of Goruckpore had 80,000 people, or 1 per cent. of its population, on relief, while Sarum had 180,000, or 10 per cent. of its population, on relief. Again, going south I find that Ganjam, a permanently settled district of Madras, has suffered more severely and more often from famine than any of the temporarily settled districts of that Presidency. At the present time Ganjam has 60,000 people, or 3 per cent. of its population, on relief, whilst the adjoining temporary settlement of Pooree has only 5,000, or ½ per cent. of 434 its population, upon relief. I do not contend that the permanently settled districts, as such, suffer more severely in famine than temporarily settled districts; but this instance and many others might be given to support the view that the permanence of land revenue demand does not enable the people to endure the pressure of famine more easily than the inhabitants of temporarily settled districts.