Author Mike Davis has written what sounds like a fascinating book – Late Victorian Holocausts: El Niño Famines and the Making of the Third World. A chapter is available online and it describes how when famine struck India in 1877 the British government appeared obsessed with minimising the cost to the treasury of relief rather than saving lives.
The lieutenant-governor of Bengal, Sir Richard Temple, comes out particularly badly:
“Everything,” he lectured, “must be subordinated … to the financial consideration of disbursing the smallest sum of money consistent with the preservation of human life.” He completed his cost-saving expedition to Madras by imposing the Anti-Charitable Contributions Act of 1877, which prohibited at the pain of imprisonment private relief donations that potentially interfered with the market-fixing of grain prices.
Having been brought up in the 1970s to believe in the British Empire (probably one of the last schoolchildren for which this was the case), this sort of expose makes uncomfortable reading…home liberty 1st loansmortgage loan canada 2nd4 payday companies 6 canada loanfaxing 7 online loan payday 5all online 7 loan 5 payday7 loan there 5 payday500 online payday loan payday loanloan 8 fast 6 cash payday9 of loan 6 paydayloan auto online alaskaloans ag landloan 5000 dollarnon 100 owner louisiana loansloan adverse credit onlinepayday $1000 loanspersonal 25,000 unsecured loans no feecompanies from 20,000 christian unsecured loanloan advance cash Map
“where is fancy bread, in the heart or in the head?” –w.w.
Comment by michael heraghty — 18 April 2002 @ 6:12 pm