>Some of that is unavoidable tragedy, but quite a lot of it is direct mismanagement (especially fervent devotion to a "work sets you free" mindset and free market capitalism).

It was all going so well until you spewed propaganda, believe it not the provinces administered by the British were least affected by disease and famine primarily because of the infrastructure and institutions that'd been established in them. Additionally, we have a better insight into those regions because of the record keeping again introduced by the bureaucracy forced upon them...