that the government, with the best of
intentions, did all in its power to make matters worse; and that to its
blundering ignorance the distress which followed is largely due.

The first duty incumbent upon the government in a case like that of
the failure of the winter rice-crop of 1769, was to do away with all
hindrance to the importation of food into the province. One chief cause
of the far-reaching distress wrought by great Asiatic famines has been
the almost complete commercial isolation of Asiatic communities. In the
Middle Ages the European communities were also, though to a far less
extent, isolated from each other, and in those days periods of famine
were comparatively frequent and severe. And one of the chief causes
which now render the occurrence of a famine on a great scale almost
impossible in any part of the civilized world is the increased
commercial solidarity of civilized nations. Increased facility of
distribution has operated no less effectively than improved methods of
production.

Now, in 1770 the province of Lower Bengal was in a state of almost
complete commercial isolation from other communities. Importation of
food on an adequate scale was hardly possible. "A single fact speaks
volumes as to the isolation of each district. An abundant harvest, we
are repeatedly told, was as disastrous to the revenues as a bad one;
for, when a large quantity of grain had to be carried to market, the
cost of carriage swallowed up the price obtained. Indeed, even if the
means of intercommunication and transport had rendered importation
practicable, the province had at that time no money to give in exchange
for food. Not only had its various divisions a separate currency which
would pass nowhere else except at a ruinous exchange, but in that
unfortunate year Bengal seems to have been utterly drained of its
specie..... The absence of the means of importation was the more to
be deplored, as the neighbouring districts could easily have supplied
grain. In the southeast a fair harvest had been reaped, except, in
circumscribed spots; and we are assured that, during the famine, this
part of Bengal was enabled to export without having to complain of any
deficiency in consequence..... INDEED, NO MATTER HOW LOCAL A FAMINE
MIGHT BE IN THE LAST CENTURY, THE EFFECTS WERE EQUALLY DISASTROUS.
Sylhet, a district in the northeast of Bengal, had reaped unusually
plentiful harvests in 1780 and 1781, but the next crop was destroyed by