The Hastings Standard Published Daily. SATURDAY, JAN. 16, 1897. TERRIBLE TRIALS.

Hastings Standard, Issue 222, 16 January 1897, Page 2

The Hastings Standard Published Daily.

SATURDAY, JAN. 16, 1897. TERRIBLE TRIALS.

For the cause that lacks assistance, For the wrongs that need resistance, For the future in the distance, And the good that we can do.

The burdens of the Empire were never more forcibly illustrated than at the present time. The British Empire seems just now to be scourged from end to end, and the actual and prospective loss in men and money is prodigious. India is being swept by famine and at the present moment some 75,000,000 of human being are in imminent risk of death by starvation. The famine of 1H76-77, it is estimated cost 5,000,000 lives and the death rate m the faminestricken districts has already risen from 2* per 1000 to 12* per 1000. To add to the misery, the bubonic plague i-' ravaging llombay and Knrrachee. The death rate from the plague has ris<-n enormously and the panicstricken people are tleeing from the city. In South Africa a cattle-plague, starting in l.'ganda is working downwards to the coast and experts assert that not one per cent of the cattle in South Africa will survive. Even the steps taken to prevent the spread of the plague are fraught with danger, for one well qualified to speak on the subject says that a native rising on a gigantic scale will be the 'inevitable result of shooting the cattle belonging to the niggers. The disaster, the Spectator declares, will be '• irreparable for a generation," and adds ■* we should not wonder in the least for instance, to see the Port iguese on the East and the Germans ou the West coast erasenl from the world." And this cattle plague is destined to seriously affect the social and commercial development of South Africa, and may give rbe to tiie gravest political coiiie^utaces.

In the colonies we are practically free but still we have just now a whole heap of minor calamities to face. Droughts, bush-fires, and cyclones such as wiped out Nevertire and Port Darwin, are small in comparison with the calamities afflicting other portions of the British Empire, but they are costly affairs to us, and must in the natural course of things curtail our abilities to help those of our afflicted fellow subjects. In this colony the loss by bush fires will we think be found to be serious, and those who are able must give and no doubt will give generous assistance to the unfortunate settlers who have been so severely burdened by the losses occasioned by the prevailing bush fires.