CORRESPONDENCE.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XII, Issue 254, 26 October 1877, Page 2

CORRESPONDENCE.

INDIAN FAMINE. To the Editor of the 'Evenixo Mail.' Sib,— Haying read in your paper of yesterday evening an account of the meeting held to consider the best steps to take concerning the Indian famine, I beg leaye for space for a few remarks thafc I would fain make on that subject. Most of the inhabitants of Nelson seem to think that this famine has only lately broken out, but I can assure you I was in Calcutta four years and a half back, and there was as much talk of the famine there at that time as there is in New Zealand now. At the same time the Indian Government were exporting so?ie thousands of tons of rice from India every month, and aa rice is almost the sole article of Indian food (I mean, of course, the poorer classes) it seems to me to have been a blind look-out on the part of the Government officials to allow the exportation to continue. It was about that time that the I Governor-General came to Calcutta and stopped the exportation from that port; but I could name vessels thafc have taken rice from ludia within the last fifteen months. Whether ifc still contiuues I cannot venture to say. I see in your paper that the Rev. Mr Beckenham's speech filled oue of those present with shame. lam sorry to hear it, but I must say I fully coincide with the Rev. Mr Beckenham's view of the subject. Why, Sir, within the last three months I have read in the papers of three deaths arising from starvation in Dunedin alone, and I could quote a case that occurred in New Zealand a short time back, of a master of a barque who had lost his little all, and had had his certificate suspended into the bargain, when a meeting was called to consider the best steps to titke concerning the surplus money, part of which was divided among the other sufferers, some of our Nelson divines opposed his receiving any, although the man was almost destitute. I beg the member who was filled with shame to compare the Rev. Mr Beckenham's conduct afc that time with the conduct of others, and then see whom he has most need to be ashamed of. Do not think that I would say and do anything thafc would in any way damp the good intentions of the people of Nelson; on the contrary I say may God speed their efforts to alleviate the sufferings of their fellow beings, but that there has been a neglect of duty on the part of some in allowing the exportation of rice to contiuue from India, and that there is need for a little more practice of the old saying that charity begins at home is plain to yours truly Barnacle Back. Nelson, Oct. 25, 1877.