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labour, all concerned indirectly or directly with what we may term
expansion.
Quite recently epidemic malaria has attracted considerable at-
tention in Murshidabad town; and in connection with this we quote
a newspaper cutting, dated August 1908-
" The mortality from fevers of which statistics are given in the
report of the Sanitary Commissioner for Bengal is something almost
past belief. Murshidabad among towns was the worst sufferer,
the mortality amounting to 46.08 per mille. It is added that this is
the third year in succession that this town has been the most fever-
stricken. We read:-' The civil surgeon is strongly of opinion that
the newly constructed branch of the Eastern Bengal State Railway
has affected the public health'. He says that the Railway Engineer-
ing authorities have been guilty as elsewhere of taking absolutely no
means of draining the pits and hollows by the side of the embank-
ments, that he is convinced that in such a malarious neighbourhood
specially as that of Murshidabad town, this has led to increased un-
healthiness and should be remedied."
It is needless to say that more than borrow-pits and hollows are
concerned.
Time and further research must decide whether we have exag-
gerated the importance of this matter, but if not, it seems to us that
this factor in malaria must be recognised and dealt with; for there
appears to be every probability that, when allowed to act year after
year without attempt at control upon populations whose general
health is already in a state of precarious stability, it may so far up-
set this equilibriumm as to produce widespread outbreaks of disease
amongst them.
Industrial expansion in the tropics is but beginning; every year
its requirements become more urgent; every year it is taking fresh
strides; and on the threshold of every advance in India, as well as in
every other tropical country, we are met with the necessity for this
industrial aggregation of labour.
1SC C