ABSTRACT
This chapter summarises two problems, the government faced when dealing with the Orissa Famine: firstly, it attempted to require labourers to ‘wor[k] harder’ and receive an increase in wages to counter the tripling of food prices; in other words, the labourer would double his work and receive wages increased threefold in order to buy the foodstuffs that had tripled in price. The demand for labour continued to rise so as to meet the increased demand for the work. Wages consequently remained firm at the old rates. The traditional reticence of the [British] Indian government proved in this instance unwise. The authorities, however, were in a position to appreciate more thoroughly than the public could the evils that the most judicious system of state charity would not fail to produce, and which premature state charity would aggravate in a pernicious degree.
