File:My life-work; (1902) (14783910452).jpg

Identifier: mylifework00smit (find matches)
Title: My life-work;
Year: 1902 (1900s)
Authors: Smith, Samuel, 1836-1906
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Publisher: London : Hodder and Stoughton

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eading natives, mostly Congress men.-I found there, as indeed ever3/where, much discontent with ourmethods of government. I derived much information from read-ing the great famine report—made after the terrible Madras famineof 1876-7—the most instructive Indian State paper I have everperused. It gives a complete account of the social and agricul-tural system of India. Sir James Caird and other agriculturalexperts sat upon the famine commission. I also read Cairdsbook and others of the same class on India, and became moreand more impressed with the reality of the complaints of thedesperate poverty of large sections of the population. In theawful Madras famine it was calculated that five millions of peopleperished. Since then even larger and more terrible droughts andfamines have occurred, especially those of 1897 and 1900, but themortality was not nearly so great, owing to the splendid exertionsmade by the Government. But the fact of Indian poverty is now s- to D 2 >pi > D ft
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INDIAN PROBLEMS 197 acknowledged by all. It was not so then. I was staggered atthe mformation I got. I employed my time on the voyage home,which occupied a month, to write out my conclusions, which werepublished as two articles in the Contemporary Review, and werereplied to by Sir Mountstuart Grant Dufi, Governor of Madras,in other two articles. I may here state that I attended almost every debate on Indiain the next sixteen years, except the last two Sessions, when infaihng health. I repeatedly spoke and raised special Indiandebates in those years. I made it my duty to read all the principalState papers on India. I derived much information from oureminent Anglo-Indians in Parliament, such as the late Sir GeorgeCampbell and Sir Richard Temple. I also met most of the ableIndian delegates who visited this country, and availed myself oftheir information. I have thus built upon the foundation laidin 1886, and for that reason I venture to summarize my conclusionspublished in the Contempora

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