§ MR. O'DONNELLasked the Under Secretary of State for India, Whether he is aware that in large and populous districts of India grave questions of employment and labour are continually arising between Natives of India and European manufacturers and speculators, and that against European offenders the Natives are entirely unprovided with any magistrates of their own race to supervise or protect their interests; whether throughout Behar the indigo planting interest is entirely in the hands of Europeans, whose treatment of their labourers and tenants has been the object of numerous complaints and the cause of wide spread disaffection, and that in Behar the magistrates and officials are often closely allied with indigo planting classes and families; whether it is true that in Assam the tea planting interest is in European hands, that much of the capital is supplied by persons in the employment of the Government of India, that the complaints of the excessive mortality among the labourers in the tea plantations have been admitted to be well-founded in Parliament, that a recent Act indenturing Native labourers to service for a minimum of five years has been denounced in the Native Indian Press as the Assam Slave Act, and that no magistrate of their own race possesses any power to protect the Native Indian labourers from the excesses of their European employers; whether complaints have reached him that European officials who have opposed the influential European interest have been subjected to removal and punishment; and whether he will lay upon the Table of the House all the Papers relating to the removal of the European Chief Magistrate of Sewan, the European Assistant Magistrate of Sewan, and the European Police Superintendent of Sewan who had reported upon the ill-treatment of the native population in parts of Behar?
§ MR. J. K. CROSSThe hon. Member asks me five Questions. To the first I reply that questions of labour and employment naturally arise in India. There are hundreds of Native Judges and magistrates who in certain civil cases exercise jurisdiction over European and Natives alike, but who in criminal matters have jurisdiction over Natives 1159 only. Secondly, the indigo interest in Behar, though mainly, is not exclusively, in European hands. The whole subject of the treatment of the Natives by planters has of late years occupied the attention of the Government of India, and a great deal has been done to rectify the faults of the system. I have no reason to believe that any disaffection or even discontent exists. Concerning the relationship between planters and magistrates, I have no information. Thirdly, tea-planting in Assam is generally carried on by European Companies, whose shareholders are no doubt duly registered. As regards the mortality and the Inland Immigration Act, I must refer the hon. Member to the answer of the noble Marquess the late Secretary of State of the 3rd of April last. I do not know what the denunciations of the Native Press may be. In Assam, as throughout India, there are many Native magistrates exercising the powers I have already mentioned. Fourthly, I know of no instance in which a European official has been removed or punished for opposing influential European interests. Fifthly, in 879 the magistrate and collector of the district of Sarun, and the joint magistrate and collector of Sewan, a subdivision of that district, were transferred by the officiating Lieutenant Governor of Bengal, because it was considered advisable in the public interest. The transfer of officers from one district to another, being left entirely to the local governments, who are responsible for the administration of their Provinces, it is not proposed to lay on the Table any Papers relating to these transfers.