The White Slaves of England

by John C. Cobden

"The soil seems to lie under a curse. Instead of yielding abundance for the wants of its own population and the inhabitants of other regions, it does not keep in existence its own children. It becomes the burying-place of millions who die upon its bosom crying for bread. In proof of this, turn your eyes backward upon the scenes of the past year. Go with me into the North-west provinces of the Bengal presidency, and I will show you the bleaching skeletons of five hundred thousand human beings, who perished of hunger in the space of a few short months. Yes, died of hunger, in what has been justly called the granary of the world. Bear with me, if I speak of the scenes which were exhibited during the prevalence of this famine. The air for miles was poisoned by the effluvia emitted from the putrefying bodies of the dead. The rivers were choked with the corpses thrown into their channels. Mothers cast their little ones beneath the rolling waves, because they would not see them draw their last gasp and feel them stiffen in their arms. The English in the cities were prevented from taking their customary evening drives. Jackals and vultures approached, and fastened upon the bodies of men, women, and children before life was extinct. Madness, disease, despair stalked abroad, and no human power present to arrest their progress. It was the carnival of death. And this occurred in British India—in the reign of Victoria the First. Nor was the event extraordinary and unforeseen. Far from it: 1835-36 witnessed a famine in the Northern provinces; 1833 beheld one to the eastward; 1822-23 saw one in the Deccan."

The above extract from one of George Thompson's "Lectures on India," conveys an idea of the horrors of a famine in that country. What then must be the guilt of that government that adopts such measures as tend to increase the frequency and swell the horror of these scenes! By draining the resources of the people, and dooming them to the most pinching poverty, the British conquerors have greatly increased the dangers of the visitations of famine, and opened to it a wide field for destruction. The poor Hindoos may be said to live face to face with starvation. The following account of the famine of 1833 is given by Colonel Sleeman, in his "Rambles and Recollections:"—

"During the famine of 1833, as on all similar occasions, grain of every kind, attracted by high prices, flowed up in large streams from this favoured province (Malwa) toward Bundelcund; and the population of Bundelcund, as usual in such times of dearth and scarcity, flowed off toward Malwa against the stream of supply, under the assurance that the nearer they got to the source the greater would be their chance of employment and subsistence. Every village had its numbers of the dead and the dying; and the roads were all strewed with them; but they were mostly concentrated upon the great towns, and civil and military stations, where subscriptions were open for their support by both the European and native communities. The funds arising from these subscriptions lasted till the rain had fairly set in, when all able-bodied persons could easily find employment in tillage among the agricultural communities of the villages around. After the rains have fairly set in, the sick and helpless only should be kept concentrated upon large towns and stations, where little or no employment is to be found; for the oldest and youngest of those who are able to work can then easily find employment in weeding the cotton, rice, sugar-cane, and other fields under autumn crops, and in preparing the land for the reception of the wheat, grain, and other spring seeds; and get advances from the farmers, agricultural capitalists, and other members of the village communities, who are all glad to share their superfluities with the distressed, and to pay liberally for the little service they are able to give in return.

"At large places, where the greater numbers are concentrated, the scene becomes exceedingly distressing, for in spite of the best dispositions and greatest efforts on the part of government and its officers, and the European and native communities, thousands commonly die of starvation. At Saugor, mothers, as they lay in the streets unable to walk, were seen holding up their infants, and imploring the passing stranger to take them in slavery, that they might at least live—hundreds were seen creeping into gardens, courtyards, and old ruins, concealing themselves under shrubs, grass, mats, or straw, where they might die quietly, without having their bodies torn by birds and beasts before the breath had left them! Respectable families, who left home in search of the favoured land of Malwa, while yet a little property remained, finding all exhausted, took opium rather than beg, and husband, wife, and children died in each other's arms! Still more of such families lingered on in hope until all had been expended; then shut their doors, took poison, and died all together, rather than expose their misery, and submit to the degradation of begging. All these things I have myself known and seen; and in the midst of these and a hundred other harrowing scenes which present themselves on such occasions, the European cannot fail to remark the patient resignation with which the poor people submit to their fate; and the absence of almost all those revolting acts which have characterized the famines of which he has read in other countries—such as the living feeding on the dead, and mothers devouring their own children. No such things are witnessed in Indian famines; here all who suffer attribute the disaster to its real cause, the want of rain in due season; and indulge in no feelings of hatred against their rulers, superiors, or more fortunate equals in society, who happen to live beyond the influence of such calamities. They gratefully receive the superfluities which the more favoured are always found ready to share with the afflicted in India; and though their sufferings often subdue the strongest of all pride—the pride of caste, they rarely ever drive people to acts of violence. The stream of emigration, guided as it always is by that of the agricultural produce flowing in from the more favoured countries, must necessarily concentrate upon the communities along the line it takes a greater number of people than they have the means of relieving, however benevolent their dispositions; and I must say, that I have never either seen or read of a nobler spirit than seems to animate all classes of these communities in India on such distressing occasions."

The same writer has some judicious general remarks upon the causes of famine in India, which are worthy of quotation. We have only to add, that whatever may be found in the climate and character of the country that expose the people to the frequency of want, the conquerors have done their best to aggravate natural evils:—

"In India, unfavourable seasons produce much more disastrous consequences than in Europe. In England, not more than one-fourth of the population derive their incomes from the cultivation of the land around them. Three-fourths of the people have incomes, independent of the annual returns from those lands; and with these incomes they can purchase agricultural produce from other lands when the crops upon them fail. The farmers, who form so large a portion of the fourth class, have stock equal in value to four times the amount of the annual rent of their lands. They have also a great variety of crops; and it is very rare that more than one or two of them fail, or are considerably affected, the same season. If they fail in one district or province, the deficiency is very easily supplied to people who have equivalents to give for the produce of another. The sea, navigable rivers, fine roads, all are open and ready at all times for the transport of the super-abundance of one quarter to supply the deficiencies of another. In India the reverse of all this is unhappily everywhere to be found; more than three-fourths of the whole population are engaged in the cultivation of the land, and depend upon its annual returns for subsistence. The farmers and cultivators have none of them stock equal in value to more than half the amount of the annual rents of their lands. They have a great variety of crops; but all are exposed to the same accidents, and commonly fail at the same time. The autumn crops are sown in June and July, and ripen in October and November; and if seasonable showers do not fall in July, August, and September, all fail. The spring crops are sown in October and November, and ripen in March; and if seasonable showers do not happen to fall during December or January, all, save what are artificially irrigated, fail. If they fail in one district or province, the people have few equivalents to offer for a supply of land produce from any other. Their roads are scarcely anywhere passable for wheeled carriages at any season, and nowhere at all seasons—they have nowhere a navigable canal, and only in one line a navigable river. Their land produce is conveyed upon the backs of bullocks, that move at the rate of six or eight miles a day, and add one hundred per cent. to the cost for every hundred miles they carry it in the best seasons, and more than two hundred in the worst. What in Europe is felt merely as a dearth, becomes in India, under all these disadvantages, a scarcity; and what is there a scarcity becomes here a famine."

Another illustration of the truth that poverty is the source of crime and depravity is found in India. Statistics and the evidence of recent travellers show that the amount of vice in the different provinces is just in proportion to the length of time they have been under British rule. No stronger proof of the iniquity of the government—of its poisonous tendencies as well as positive injustice—could be adduced.

The cultivation and exportation of the pernicious drug, opium, which destroys hundreds of thousands of lives annually, have latterly been prominent objects of the East Indian government. The best tracts of land in India were chosen for the cultivation of the poppy. The people were told that they must either raise this plant, make opium, or give up their land. Furthermore, those who produced the drug were compelled to sell it to the Company. In the Bengal Presidency, the monopoly of the government is complete. It has its establishment for the manufacture of the drug. There are two great agencies at Ghazeepore and Patna, for the Benares and Bahar provinces. Each opium agent has several deputies in different districts, and a native establishment. They enter into contracts with the cultivator for the supply of opium at a rate fixed to suit the demand. The land-revenue authorities do not interfere, except to prevent cultivation without permission. The land cultivated is measured, and all the produce must be sold to the government. At the head agency the opium is packed in chests and sealed with the Company's seal. [112]

The imperial government of China, seeing that the traffic in opium was sowing misery and death among its subjects, prohibited the introduction of the drug within the empire in 1839. But the British had a vast amount of capital at stake, and the profits of the trade were too great to be relinquished for any considerations of humanity. War was declared; thousands of Chinese were slaughtered, and the imperial government forced to permit the destructive traffic on a more extensive scale than ever, and to pay $2,000,000 besides for daring to protest against it!