A view of Fort William in Calcutta (Kolkata) in 1754, the headquarters of the East India Company in Bengal, in the days when the Company chiefly contented itself with trade and trying to get its own man in as Nawab. Ten years later, victory at the Battle of Buxar won them the right to set tax and agricultural policy. As Smith explains, they allowed greed and incompetence to dictate, and turned a natural disaster into a humanitarian catastrophe.
Introduction
The Bengal Famine of 1769 was a humanitarian catastrophe and an ugly blot on Britain’s colonial record. Scottish economist Adam Smith, a severe critic of colonial greed and the East India Company, believed that it would have been no more than a manageable food-shortage had the Company pursued a policy of free trade.
IN rice countries, where the crop not only requires a very moist soil, but where, in a certain period of its growing, it must be laid under water, the effects of a drought are much more dismal. Even in such countries, however, the drought is, perhaps, scarce ever so universal as necessarily to occasion a famine, if the government would allow a free trade.
The drought in Bengal, a few years ago, might probably have occasioned a very great dearth. Some improper regulations, some injudicious restraints, imposed by the servants of the East India Company upon the rice trade, contributed, perhaps, to turn that dearth into a famine.
When the government, in order to remedy the inconveniencies of a dearth, orders all the dealers to sell their corn at what it supposes a reasonable price, it either hinders them from bringing it to market, which may sometimes produce a famine even in the beginning of the season; or, if they bring it thither, it enables the people, and thereby encourages them to consume it so fast as must necessarily produce a famine before the end of the season.
Abridged
From ‘Wealth of Nations’ II.3, by Adam Smith (1723-1790).
Questions for Critics
1. What is the author aiming to achieve in writing this?
2. Note any words, devices or turns of phrase that strike you. How do they help the author communicate his ideas more effectively?
3. What impression does this passage make on you? How might you put that impression into words?
Based on The English Critic (1939) by NL Clay, drawing on The New Criticism: A Lecture Delivered at Columbia University, March 9, 1910, by J. E. Spingarn, Professor of Comparative Literature in Columbia University, USA.
Précis
Shortly after the Bengal famine of 1769, Scottish philosopher Adam Smith wrote that although a drought had made a food shortage inevitable, the subsequent famine was a consequence of interference from the East India Company, imposing unwise restrictions on farmers. Allowing free trade, he concluded, would prevent such disasters happening in the future. (53 / 60 words)
Shortly after the Bengal famine of 1769, Scottish philosopher Adam Smith wrote that although a drought had made a food shortage inevitable, the subsequent famine was a consequence of interference from the East India Company, imposing unwise restrictions on farmers. Allowing free trade, he concluded, would prevent such disasters happening in the future.
Variations: 1.increase the length of this precis to exactly 60 words. 2.reduce the length of this precis to exactly 50 words. 3.introduce one of the following words into the precis: about, because, may, or, unless, until, whereas, whether.
Archive
Word Games
Sevens Based on this passage
Suggest answers to this question. See if you can limit one answer to exactly seven words.
Variations: 1.expand your answer to exactly fourteen words. 2.expand your answer further, to exactly twenty-one words. 3.include one of the following words in your answer: if, but, despite, because, (al)though, unless.
Jigsaws Based on this passage
Express the ideas below in a single sentence, using different words as much as possible. Do not be satisfied with the first answer you think of; think of several, and choose the best.
Spinners Find in Think and Speak
For each group of words, compose a sentence that uses all three. You can use any form of the word: for example, cat → cats, go → went, or quick → quickly, though neigh → neighbour is stretching it a bit.
This exercise uses words found in the accompanying passage.
1 Fast. Injudicious. Must.
2 Begin. Crop. Few.
3 Beginning. Necessary. Upon.
Variations: 1. include direct and indirect speech 2. include one or more of these words: although, because, despite, either/or, if, unless, until, when, whether, which, who 3. use negatives (not, isn’t, neither/nor, never, nobody etc.)
High Tiles Find in Think and Speak
Make words (three letters or more) from the seven letters showing below, using any letter once only. Each letter carries a score. What is the highest-scoring word you can make?
x
0
Add
Your Words ()
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