§ LORD GEORGE HAMILTONasked the Under Secretary of State for India, If his attention has been directed to a Minute written in 1881 by Mr. Rivers Thompson, then Member of the Viceroy's Council, now Governor of Bengal, in which he alludes to the orders for the destruction of part of the Railway to Quetta, in the following terms:—
But perhaps the most grievous and humiliating part of the orders (from England) is that which affects not only the stoppage of the Railway works now under construction by the Nari Gorge, but the dismantling of the rails and the destruction of the earthworks already completed to a considerable distance toward Quetta.These orders, in his opinion, constituteA wilful and deliberate surrender of advantages gained after a vast expenditure of time and thought and money, and which would subserve peaceful administration much more than they would supply the military requirements of our position at Quetta." (Affghanistan, No. 4, page 10, 1881);and, if he would lay upon the Table of the House an estimate of the increased cost to the finances of India, caused by the destruction of material and dispersion of establishments collected by the late Government for the purpose of making that very Railway to Quetta, which, in 1881, Her Majesty's Government repudiated, but in 1884 they desire to construct?
§ MR. J. K. CROSSI have read the Minute to which the noble Lord directs my attention; and in reply to his Question, I can only say that we have no data at the India Office which will enable us to form such an Estimate as that ho asks for. But should it be decided to proceed with the railway to Quetta, the Government of India will, of course, furnish full Estimates of the cost of the 645 undertaking, which the noble Lord will have an opportunity of comparing with any previous Estimates.
§ LORD GEORGE HAMILTONAll the previous Estimates?
§ MR. J. K. CROSSI have made an examination in the Office, and I have not been able to find a previous Estimate. I believe no such Estimate was made.