ating, economic infamy which has starved, and is still
deliberately starving, millions of people to death in British
India."[490] "I charge it against the British Government, at this
moment, that the economic condition of India is much more horrible
than ever it was. I declare that the despotism of Russia is more
apparently cruel, but the actual economic effect of the British
Government's rule in India is more desperate than anything in the
situation in Russia."[491]

Mr. Hare also speaks of "famine made by Government"[492]--India
suffers from two great evils: famine and the plague. India is very
densely populated. The natives live chiefly upon rice, and rice
requires an enormous quantity of moisture. If rain fails, there is
famine, and no Government can prevent it, though it may alleviate it.
Therefore all rice countries--China, India, Japan--are periodically
stricken by famine. It is difficult enough, and taxes the resources of
a country to the utmost, to feed in a barren country an army of
500,000 men who are closely assembled. It is impossible to feed a
population of 60,000,000, even if funds and stores of food are
unlimited. With the most perfect system of harbours, canals, railways,
&c., the distribution of food for 60,000,000 people offers
insurmountable obstacles. Plague is caused by infection, and may be
stamped out by the observance of those sanitary rules which Indians
refuse to observe. Cases of plague are not reported to the
authorities, but are hidden from them, so that the sanctity of the
home may not be defiled by the entrance of a medical man.
Nevertheless, Socialists never tire of preaching: "If there is one
disease which is more directly the outcome of poverty than any other,
it is the plague."[493] "Just think of 250,000 people dying of
manufactured black plague in one month. It is not the people of
England who benefit by our murderous despotism in India. It is not the
working classes who would suffer if India were relieved from its
present frightful oppression. If the present trade is beneficial, it
is beneficial to the wealthy rather than to the workers."[494] "If
ever there was a population in the history of the world possessed of a
remarkable climate, with a fruitful soil, with all the opportunities
for making wealth, and having been the source of wealth to the peoples
who have traded with them for centuries, the population of India is
that people and Hindostan is that country which ought to be