§ VISCOUNT JOCELYNwished to ask the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Control if the reports which had appeared in the public papers to the effect that great deficiencies had been discovered to exist in the accounts of the chief officer of the Ecclesiastical Courts in India, amounting, it was said, to less than 100,000l., were true; and if so, whether these deficiencies were to be made up by Her Majesty's Government or by the East India Company? He also wished to know whether it was 171 the intention of Government to take any steps to prevent the recurrence of such disgraceful conduct?
§ SIR J. C. HOBHOUSEWith extreme regret he had to state, in reply to the noble Lord, that Sir Thomas Turton, the Registrar of the Ecclesiastical Court at Calcutta, had been guilty of the offence imputed to him. The defalcations of the registrar, though not amounting to so large a sum as the noble Lord had stated, were still very large, and the securities he gave when he accepted the office, would, if applied to that purpose, go but a little way in malting them up. With respect to the noble Lord's second question, he was sorry to say he could not give him a satisfactory answer. The East India Company protested against the deficiency being charged on the revenues of India; and he feared his right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer would protest against its being charged on the revenue of England. With respect to the third question, he had to inform the noble Lord that on receipt of the intelligence from India, he thought it his duty to consult the law officer of the Crown with respect to the punishment of the party implicated, in order to ascertain whether it would not be advisable to indict him; but the opinion of that Gentleman was not favourable to such a course. He (Sir J. C. Hobhouse) had informed the Government of India of the circumstance, and the authorities in that country were preparing a measure by which they would prevent the recurrence of any such delinquency.