§ MR. O'DONNELLasked the Under Secretary of State for India, If his attention has been called to the fact that, in a recent prosecution against the European proprietor and a Native captain of a Bombay line of coasting steamers for alleged breach of the Passenger Acts, both the European proprietor and the Native captain were sentenced to fines by the magistrate; whether the European proprietor made use of his right of appeal as a European to procure a rehearing of the case in a higher court, with the result that it was decided that no breach of the Passenger Acts had been committed, and that his fine must be remitted; whether the Native captain, because he was not a European, had no right of appeal, and cannot have his fine remitted; and, whether Government intends to maintain the privilege of appeal for some of Her Majesty's subjects and to refuse it to others solely on the ground of difference of race?
§ MR. J. K. CROSSSir, I have not seen any report of the case referred to in the Question, and can, therefore, form no opinion as to the rights of the parties. But, supposing such a case to have occurred, if the Native had been as little liable to conviction as the European, the High Court would, as a matter of course, exercise its powers of a Court of Revision, and would, of its own motion, deal with the Native as it had dealt with the European. No alteration of the law, in the direction indicated by the hon. Member, is at present contemplated.