§ MR. JAMES O'CONNORI beg to ask the Secretary of State for India if he can state the total number of persons on relief works in India, how long the present famine has continued, how many persons have died from hunger and disease, and what is the number of deaths from bubonic plague since the outbreak of the epidemic to the present date.
§ *LORD G. HAMILTONThe total number of persons on relief works in India, according to the latest accounts, is 5,802,000. The famine was caused by the failure of last autumn's rains, and has therefore lasted about seven months. It is absolutely impossible at present to form even an approximate estimate of the number of deaths which it has caused directly or indirectly; in some parts of India where famine has been aggravated by cholera and small-pox the mortality, I fear, has been very heavy; in other large districts where the famine is equally severe, but has not been, associated with wholesale epidemic disease the efforts of the Government of India and its organisation of relief have been so successful that the death rate is hardly above the normal. The total number of reported 154 plague deaths from 1896, when the epidemic began, down to last April, was 358,685—that is to say, about one death per annum to every three thousand living inhabitants of India. At the present moment the plague mortality in Bombay is lower than at any period in the three preceding years.
§ MR. JAMES O'CONNORCan the noble Lord promise to give us the number of deaths that have occurred from famine?
§ *LORD G. HAMILTONI hope the hon. Gentleman will recollect that the area covered by famine contains 85,000,000 people, and that the number of Europeans and of officials in that district is very small. He will see that, necessarily, a considerable time must elapse before anything like adequate statistics can be obtained, but I shall accelerate the collecting of information as far as I can, and I shall see that it is published as soon as possible.
§ MR. WILLIAM REDMONDI beg to ask the Secretary of State for India if his attention has been called to the report of Dr. Kloptsch, administrator of the fund raised in Now York for the relief of distress in India, and whether he has any information to the effect, as stated in the report, that vultures, dogs, and jackals have been found devouring human bodies left unburied; and whether in view of the suffering caused by famine and plague throughout India at present, the Government will recommend at once the appointment of a Royal Commission to inquire into the best and speediest method of dealing with the state of affairs now existing in Her Majesty's Indian Empire.
§ LORD G. HAMILTONI have seen the telegram of Dr. Kloptsch, and have read similar statements in one or two of the numerous reports that have reached me. These statements only apply to the districts, limited in number, I am glad to say, where cholera and small-pox have attacked the famine camps, thus forming a combination which for the moment baffles any administrative palliation. A Commission of great weight and authority was appointed in 1897 to report on the best method of dealing with famine in India, and its suggestions, which wore published in 1898 after a most elaborate 155 and searching inquiry, have been of great value. Another similar Commission was appointed in 1898 to deal with the plague, and has produced a very important and exhaustive Report, part of which only has yet been published. I do not, therefore, propose at present to advise the appointment of a Royal Commission, though it may hereafter be advisable when the present epidemics are over to utilise the experience gained by making it the subject of further Reports.
§ MR. WILLIAM REDMONDArising out of that answer, may I ask whether the Government propose to wait until millions of people meet their death by starvation before they will inquire as to a remedy?
§ LORD G. HAMILTONI hope the monsoon which has begun will very shortly put an end to the famine. I think the hon. Gentleman will see that it is quite impossible with only a limited number of officials at our disposal to ask them to put on one side the more pressing work of ministering to the wants of the distressed in order to make inquiries and ascertain statistics.
§ MR. WILLIAM REDMONDThe noble Lord admits that the deaths are so numerous that bodies are unburied and are even being devoured by the dogs. Will he urge on the Government the desirability of raising at once whatever money may be necessary in order to put an end to this scandal and give some relief to the people?
§ LORD G. HAMILTONIt is not a question of money. The only method by which you can deal with the enormous number of people who are suffering from hunger over great areas is to aggregate them in camps in healthy sites. Unfortunately, in the west of India there has been no rain for the last seven months, and the difficulty is not so much the scarcity of food as the purity of the water. If cholera attacks in its worst form one of the camps, it so terrifies the people that they fly in all directions, carrying with them the germs of disease and dying by the roadsides and in the ditches. And the difficulty does not end there even, because not only does the panic affect the people who are congregated in the camps, but it affects the hospital assistants, camp 156 followers, and camp scavengers. I believe that on more than one occasion the European officer after a panic has found himself with but few assistants in the presence of the dead and dying, all the rest having fled. It is due to such a state of things and not to a lack of money that this mortality arises.
§ MR. WILLIAM REDMONDThe noble Lord has not said whether it would not be possible by the application of money, by the employment of a sufficient number of assistants—
§ *MR. SPEAKEROrder, order! This is now becoming a debate. The hon. Member must give notice of any further question.
§ MR. WILLIAM REDMONDWith great respect, I desire simply to ask a question—
§ *MR. SPEAKERI have said that the hon. Member is proceeding to debate the answer given. That is not proper.
§ MR. WILLIAM REDMONDOh, of course not. You spend sixty millions of money on war, and let the people of India die of famine.
§ SIR WILLIAM WEDDERBURN (Banffshire)I beg to ask the Secretary of State for India whether he has received a memorial from the Glasgow Chamber of Commerce affirming the responsibility of this country for the well-being of the people of India, and urging Her Majesty's Government to at once invite Parliament to vote an Imperial Grant in relief of the Indian famine; and whether he will state what reply has been given to the memorialists.
§ LORD G. HAMILTONI received about a month ago a memorial from the Glasgow Chamber of Commerce, the purport of which is correctly stated in the hon. Member's question. My reply was to the effect that the Government of India had undertaken to prevent deaths from famine, and to relieve suffering so far as those objects could be attained by the expenditure of money and the administrative machinery at their disposal; that they had been informed that, if their financial resources should prove insufficient to carry out this undertaking, 157 Her Majesty's Government would be ready to give help in whatever form might be thought most advisable, and that, having regard to what the famine had already cost, and might be expected to cost on the one hand, and to the state of the Indian finances on the other, there seemed to be at present no reason to apprehend that such help would be required.
§ MR. WILLIAM REDMONDThey are collecting for India in America.
§ MR. JAMES O'CONNORI beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether it is the intention of the Government to vote a sum of money for the relief of the famine-stricken people of India.
§ THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Mr. A. J. BALFOUR,) Manchester, E.I do not know of any ground at present for initiating the great change of policy suggested by the hon. Member.
§ MR. JAMES O'CONNORAlthough six millions of people are starving!