INDIA'S NEED.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XXXXII, Issue 100, 9 June 1900, Page 2

INDIA'S NEED.

A PATHETIC PICTURE. Mb. Donald Smbatoh, member of the Viceroy's Council, who was sent as Special Commissioner to visit tht famine-stricken provinces of India, has described his experiences to a Beufeer representative. "I travelled," he said, "through Central and part of Western India. The condition of the country is mnoh worse than I had anticipated. For hundreds of miles on end not a single stalk of corn or even dry stubble is to be seen, nor yet a blade of grata pasture. " The mortality among cattle is appalling, especially in Northern Bombay, tnd parts of the Punjab, where there m no fodder and no water, and they are dying at the rate of thousands weekly from starvation and thirst. " The people in many districts are enfeebled by successive bad seasons, They have not yet recovered from the calamities of 1897. In some districts poor little children are suffering icutely. Oases of desertion on. the part of parents are not infrequent. " The officers of the Government have) not money enough to do more than birely sustain the life of the 5,000,000 who are now employed on relief work*, md of thousands upon thousands of i chose silent sufferers in deserted vil- • Uges who would rather die than labour in the relief works. " More money is wanted, and wanted juickly. I have witnessed two famines, rat I think the crisis through which ve aie now passing is by far the most icute of the century. Qreat Britain «nd Ireland owe a debt to the Indian peasant of millions upon millions. Let he United Kingdom stretch out to her <»ow a helping hand and extricate her rom the deadly grip of famine." ■*