§ * MR. MACLEAN (Cardiff)I quite agree with the hon. Gentleman that it would almost amount to a breach of faith on the part of the Government if they dissolved this Parliament without giving the House an opportunity of pronouncing our verdict on the policy of the war, and the terms of settlement of the South African problem. I do not think that there need be any immediate alarm about a dissolution, because in answer to a question the right hon. the First Lord of the Treasury said that it was quite premature to discuss when we shall take the Indian Budget. Now, that is a subject which is put off to the last days of the session, and therefore I am confident that we are not within sight of the last days of the session. I know it is very difficult in these days to attract people's attention to anything that is not connected with military promotions or to. the conduct of the war in South Africa I want, however, to direct the attention of the House to what I consider a matter of great national importance—namely,, the very serious state of affairs that prevails in India. I want the Government to state plainly to the House and to the country what position they intend to take up in regard to Indian affairs. My reason for putting this question is that I consider the Indian famine now prevailing is incomparably the worst evil that has fallen on India within my recollection. By its wide-spread character and intensity 1573 this famine has outgrown the capacity of the Government of India to deal with it. The Government of India has not the administrative staff nor the means of effectually dealing with the famine. Moreover, fodder not being obtainable, the cattle have died in millions over large tracts of India, and it will take many years to replace them; and in the meantime the country will be permanently impoverished. One did think that human life would be protected in that country. We have always been assured by the noble Lord the Secretary of State for India that the Government in India took upon itself the duty of saving life when famine afflicted that country, and that we might thoroughly rely on the Indian Government saving human life. I am sorry to say that that is not the case. Some time ago I put a question to the noble Lord about a letter in the Times, signed by a military gentleman of a very well-known name, which pointed out that the population of the Bhil country was on the point of extermination by famine; and the only answer the noble Lord gave was that the Government had no official information on the matter, and he seemed to consider it a grievance that the Bills should go and die in the secret recesses of the country, and so bring discredit on the Government of India. There have been other letters which show a very serious loss of life from famine. I receive constantly letters telling what is going on in that way. By the last mail I find in the newspapers of Bombay a letter signed by Mr. F. C. Aldrich, which describes a visit which he himself made to the so-called famine relief camps, which are often nothing but human shambles, where people are tortured slowly to death by starvation. He goes on to say—
We had never thought that such a state of affairs ever existed in India. On every hand were the dead and dying. Sometimes it was an aged person, sometimes a youth, or an infant. The sun beat down at an almost unbearable rate. The wind carried the sand in hurricane style. There was scarcely any noise, though there were many people. They sat and lay quietly in groups of from live to fifty beneath trees and by the roadside. Often one had fallen alone, and was left there to die as he had fallen. The living. the dying, and the dead were all together, if the spirit of an individual left the body in the very centre of a group of these unfortunates, no one attempted its removal. Why should they? All have sat or lain down there to die, and one by one they meet death—they all wait for it. They are helpless and they say there is no one who will 1574 give, so resigning themselves to their awful fate, they lay down and die.That is the experience of one who has actually visited these famine relief camps. It may not have been the experience of many hon. Members of the House to sea, as I have seen, one of these famine-relief camps. To anyone who has seen such a spectacle the ghastly recollection of it will not leave him to his dying day. It is far worse than a battlefield to see such awful suffering. But that is not all. What is worse is that I find a very serious accusation made against the Government by a very competent witness, who declares that the so-called relief the Government is providing for the people is insufficient to keep body and soul together, and that the poor people are left in that way to become victims of disease. I am quoting from the correspondent of a Manchester newspaper, a capable journalist well known in London, Mr. Vaughan Nash, who went out for the purpose of seeing the course of this famine for himself and reporting the facts to the people of this country. The correspondent devotes a portion of his letter to the penal minimum of relief. He says —The wages throughout the relief works, as I told my readers, are paid in money, and based on a hypothetical ration of so much grain, salt, vegetables, condiments, and oil, a maximum and a minimum ration being fixed, and the whole adjusted to the prices of grain in the bazaar. A circular had been issued decreeing that all gangs performing less than half the maximum task—an imaginary standard, by the way, which no single gang had accomplished during the week in question —should be paid 25 per cent. below the minimum. So that instead of ten and a half annas, the former weekly minimum, the men and women in the defaulting gangs were getting seven and a half, and the working children four and a half annas.
§ THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA (Lord G. HAMILTON, Middlesex, Ealing)What is the locality?
§ * MR. MACLEANI cannot give the locality. The report goes on—
Whether the people could subsist on this penal allowance without ripening for cholera-and other famine diseases was a question which the correspondent decided in the negative, and he urged it as an ominous fact that whilst the minimum was being cut down by a quarter—a minimum which assumed that only fifteen ounces of solid food a day go into the stomachs of people who must work nine hours ' between the rising and the setting of an Indian sun'—cholera is on the march in 1575 Khandeish, and God help India if cholera attacks the famine camps.Since then cholera has attacked the famine camps, and has made sad ravages there, and the last confession from the Government of India is to the effect that the people on famine relief works have been reduced in numbers because a large number of people have fled on account of the cholera raging in their midst. Those unfortunate people have gone away without any means of subsistence, or any prospect of help from any human being, and the Government does not even tell us that they have made any inquiries as to where those people have gone to.
§ DR. TANNER (Cork County, Mid)Where is Bhownaggree?
§ * MR. MACLEANThis gentleman has no motive whatever but to state what is absolutely true, and the picture he gives of the state of India at the present moment is one that revolts every man's sense of humanity. The Government of India has not the capacity in any way to deal with a famine of this kind. The high officials are men of great intelligence and a keen sense of honour, and no doubt they work as hard as any human being possible can; but necessarily a great deal of the work is left to subordinate officials, who perform it in a perfunctory way, and who have very little sympathy with the people. We rely upon the Government of India entirely in this matter. The noble Lord told the House that when the Government of India was in any difficulty that this country would come forward to its assistance. What is the Government of India doing? We know that we have at the head of affairs in India an active-minded and an enterprising Viceroy, who has a keen sense of his duties and responsibilities. He has given lavishly out of his own purse to relieve the famine, and he has done his best to stimulate and instil energy and resource among his officials. But he might have done something more; he might have done something to put a sense of hope into the hearts of the people," which would have contributed to make the management of this famine more easy to the officers of the administration. He might have come down from the mountain heights of Simla, and travelled throughout the length and breadth of the land to see these famine camps for himself, and 1576 watch the operations of the relief given by the Government. If the Viceroy had done that he would have endeared himself to the people of India, and he would have been able to make a report to the Secretary of State which would have convinced even him that it was time for England to come to the rescue. I think it is quite time for England to do something in this matter. India has failed to accomplish the task committed to her, and I think England might now outstretch a helping hand to these patient and gentle people who lie down to die by the wayside without uttering a word or making a sign.
§ * LORD G. HAMILTONThe hon. Gentleman has made a very remarkable speech. India has been visited by a terrible famine, the worst famine of the century. It has attacked areas which have not hitherto been affected by drought in the memory of man. It has affected a large area of the native States, and has taxed both their organisation and financial resources. I protest against the speech of my hon. friend. The hon. Gentleman selected one or two isolated scraps from newspapers in association with places, he does not know where, and he has given to the House the distress and the misery which might have been seen in those places as a specimen of the class of relief and the famine administration of the British Government. I say that is a gross libel on the British Government. Only yesterday I received a report from America, where a great interest is shown in the sufferings of the Indian people. In America they are endeavouring to obtain funds from private individuals for the purpose of supplementing the action of the Government. A great meeting was held in New York the other day by Indian missionaries who had visited the spot, and the substance of their report comes very opportunely. They were devising a plan for raising a fund to relieve distress in India, and to make a general appeal to the American people. Here is the substance of their appeal to the American people, taken from the New York Times of 25th April—
It is right we should hear our witness that the British Government in India is doing all that any Government on earth could do to save the lives of its distressed subjects in relieving 5,500,000 of persons by direct Government aid. It is achieving a greater work of rescue than any Government has ever 1577 in the world's history undertaken before. With a skill derived from the carefully-garnered experience of previous famine campaigns, with an unstinted expenditure of money and an heroic outlay of British energy and lives, it is doing all that an Administration can do. But alongside of its efforts, there is a vast area in which private munificence can effect what Governmental interference cannot, usefully attempt, and there is here a call to every human heart the wide world over.
§ DR. TANNERCan the noble Lord tell us who subsidised this report? (Loud cries of "Order.")
§ * MR. SPEAKERIf the hon. Member makes these interruptions I shall have to call the attention of the House to his disorderly conduct.
§ * MR. MACLEANI said nothing whatever against the Indian Government, and I frankly and gladly acknowledge that they are doing their utmost with the means and the staff at their command, but they ought to be supplemented by aid from England.
§ * LORD G. HAMILTONI think that my hon. friend went a little further, because he gave the House to understand that the famine camps were human shambles where persons were slowly tortured to death. Considering that there are some 5,500,000 persons in these famine camps, it is obvious that this is a gross and an unpardonable exaggeration. The matter is really so serious that I ask the House to allow me for a very few moments, as succinctly as possible, to tell it what is the state of affairs. The great difficulty we have to contend with is that not only is the famine more intense in its operation, not only does it cover a larger area than any famine recorded in the present century, but it has affected a large number of areas and districts where famine and drought have been absolutely unknown. In 1896–97, when we had no experience for twenty years of famine, I was nervous as to how far the machinery of the Indian Government would respond to the strain then thrown upon it. I am glad to say that, on the whole, it responded well, and the result of the exertions of the Indian Government is that, although there was a considerable loss of life, yet the effects of famine wore averted more effectually than in any previous struggle in which the Government had been engaged. The machinery was 1578 carefully supervised. A Commission was appointed; it went from district to district after the famine was over making suggestions and taking evidence as to how the famine administration Code could be improved and strengthened. When the famine broke out I had the satisfaction of knowing that, at any rate, there would be applied to it machinery which two years before had stood a great stress. But in those districts where famine had never occurred before there has been very great difficulty in getting the people to come soon enough into the famine camps. There was a deplorable loss of life— at Ahmedabad 166 died, not of starvation, but of inanition, or of having arrived at the camp so emaciated and in such a deplorable condition that they could not stand the efforts made to revive them. Lord Northcote personally enquired into these cases, and found 163 of them came from native States, many of them a considerable distance from the camp of relief. The Government has lent officers to these native States, as well as large sums of money, and I do not know what more we could do than we have done. The advances which have been made to the native States amount to 63 lakhs, and this is independent of a very large loan to be made to the State of Haiderabad amounting to two crores. Then the hon. Gentleman referred to the Bhils. Nothing could induce the people of that tribe to come into the famine camps. They will not submit to discipline and organisation, and, if they come into camp, as soon as they obtain subsistence they go off again. Of course, such a deplorable visitation as the present must hit a race of this kind terribly hard; and I have no doubt; there will be, in spite of all that the Government can do, very considerable mortality amongst them. As to th.3 cholera, Lord Northcote has been all through the famine stricken districts. Lord Curzon visited them last autumn and winter, and he paid a visit again in spring. Lord Northcote reported that the disease had broken out on account of unripe fruit, bad water, and the intense heat. The hon. Gentleman seems to assume that the food is insufficient. As to that I should take the opinion of men who have a life-long experience of the Indian coolie even before that of Mr. Nash, straightforward and honest as I know that Gentleman to 1579 be. There is no question that has been more carefully inquired into than this matter of food. There is a minimum and a maximum, and the Government has been careful not to put the maximum above the level of the normal wage which may be earned in the district. If they did not take that precaution, they would have not only the people suffering from want, but the entire native population to deal with. My hon. friend says that England should come to the rescue. Is there a lack of funds? As to assistance to India from the Imperial Treasury, I have already declared that the whole financial resources and the whole administrative machinery of India shall be devoted to combating this famine. I have said distinctly that if there were any lack of funds, or any temporary difficulties in the way of raising the ways and means, the Indian Government will receive assistance from the Chancellor of the Exchequer. But let me ask the House for a single moment to look at the other side of the question. I am one of those who have always been taught to believe with respect to the financial administration of India, that it should, as far as possible, be made self-supporting. There is an annual sum devoted to making provision against famine in India; and in India and here there is a strong tendency to push and increase expenditure in all sorts of ways. Here the Chancellor of the Exchequer has the taxpayer behind him; but in India the Finance Minister has not that safeguard; and if his inducement to balance his income and expenditure is taken away, he is made powerless to resist demands for new expenditure. The House may accept it from me that at present the Indian Government has sufficient funds to meet this terrible calamity. On what ground, then, ought a claim to be made on the Imperial Exchequer? It is true that there are 6,000,000 of people now receiving famine relief, and that there is terrible suffering, and in some districts, a heavy mortality. But in the districts where famine previously prevailed, where there is knowledge of the system of relief, and where the people have come in freely and early, the rate of mortality is very little above that of normal years. Of course, no comparison can be drawn between ordinary pauperism and the distress caused by famine; but the six millions now receiving relief, 1580 compared with the 300 millions in India, is not so large a proportion as the normal number of persons receiving poor relief, to the total population in this country. In such conditions how can the Imperial Exchequer be asked for assistance? An appeal has been made to the charitable and benevolent because there is a large amount of work in coping with the famine which can only be discharged or overtaken by means of charitable contributions. Special food and clothing can be distributed, and a house-to-house visitation can be conducted by private effort in a way which would be quite beyond the scope of Government. Let us combine as far as possible these two agencies; but it would be a fatal mistake to attempt now, when there is no lack of funds at the disposal of the Indian Government, to get the House of Commons to contribute a large sum for the purpose, not of carrying out the Government's task, but of supplementing charitable contributions. The danger is that if this policy is once pursued, it will dry up and freeze all charitable and benevolent contributions; and while the charge which is put on the Indian Government would remain, India would be deprived of that relief on which she can always depend now from charitable sources. I can assure the House that the Government are watching with the closest scrutiny and attention the progress of the famine. In the course of the next two or three days the normal rainfall may be expected to begin; and then in the next few weeks there will be a steady diminution of those now receiving relief in the famine camps. If we find at any time that there is any difficulty in supplying the necessary number of officers, doctors, and nurses, we shall not hesitate to draw to the utmost of our power on the reserves available in this country; and, in the same way, if we find at any time that there is any lack of financial resources, I shall not hesitate to ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer to give the Indian Government the assistance which, as I have more than once informed the House, he is ready to give. I have only one other word to say, and it is to the hon. Member for Northampton. He is exceedingly anxious to know when the dissolution is to take place. I am afraid I cannot inform him, though I notice a certain alarm and perturbation on his part. When I first entered the 1581 House Radical Members always declared themselves glad to go back to their constituencies, where they were supposed to draw fresh force and vitality. But now the one thing they dread and the one terror before them is that they should have to go to their constituents. I can only say to hon. Members opposite, let them pluck up their courage. I can recollect in the past, when we were in a small minority, we fought our way on until we became a majority. The hon. Member should not let himself give way to alarm. Let him have the courage to stick to his guns, and whether he is beaten or not his constituents will think the better of him.
§ DR. TANNERThe "hungry Hamiltons."
§ * MR. SPEAKERI must ask the hon. Member to apologise for that expression.
§ DR. TANNERWhat expression?
§ * MR. SPEAKERUnless the hon. Member instantly apologises I shall have to call the attention of the House to his conduct.
§ DR. TANNEROf course I apologise.