FAMINE

an extreme scarcity of food affecting considerable numbers of people at the same time Its causes are either natural, such as crop failures due to disease or to exce ive or deficient rainfall, the effect of these being aggravated when the crop concerned is one on which the population mainly depends; or political and economic, such as war, or defects in the organization of production and distribution. In the Early and Middle Ages famines were frequent; but the rapidity of modern communication and transport made famines rare in Europe, until the conditions caused by the Great War produced great scarcity in Central Europe. In Ireland the years 1814, 1816, 1822, 1831, 1846 were marked by failure of the potato crop, and in the last-mentioned year the dearth was so great that £10,000,000 were voted by Parliament for relief of the sufferers. India has been the seat of many great famines, which recur at more or le regular intervals; but of late the British officials have been succe ful in organizing preventive and relief measures, such as improvement in railways and irrigation, the multiplication of industries, and the institution of a famine insurance grant. Amongst the more recent famines are that in North-West India (1837-8), in which above 800,000 perished; that in Bengal and Ori a (1865-6), when about a million perished; that in Bombay, Madras, Mysore (1877); that of 1896-7; and that of 1900 in Bombay, Punjab, ., perhaps the most serious on record, when the Government spent £10,000,000 in relief. In China a great famine took place in 1877-8 in which over 9 i millions are said to have perished; another took place in 1888-9, owing to the overflow of the Yellow River.