§ It has been urged by some that the increased area affected by famine this year was due to the increased poverty of the community, and that, although relief administration had greatly improved upon the system in force 20 years ago, the people themselves, so far as their powers of resistance are concerned, would have stood this test better 20 years back; and it is further contended that the scarcity of food this year in India is due to the constant and ever-increasing amount of exports from India. I venture to point out that all evidence tends in the opposite direction. It is quite true that the exports of India have very largely increased in the last 20 years; but, if I take the average exports of the three years preceding the famine of 1877–78, and of the three years preceding the famine of last year, I find these results:—The exports of food other than rice have only increased to a small amount; but the non-eatable exports during that period have increased from Rx.37,000,000 to Rx.75,700,000, and this increase is almost entirely in tea, jute, cotton, oilseeds, indigo, and other non-eatable exports. Moreover, in the interval between the two famines, India has imported and retained no less than Rx. 208,000,000 of gold and of silver.