HC Deb 20 March 1884 vol 286 c275
MR. BIGGAR

asked the Under Secretary of State for India, Whether it is true, as reported in the lending European journal in India, The Pioneer, and extensively copied into other Indian papers, that Mr. Grant Duff has spent 40,000 rupees on silk hangings for Government House, Ootacamund, and has passed the item through the public accounts under the the heading of repairs?

MR. J. K. CROSS

Sir, when Mr. Grant Duff arrived in Madras he found that the Government House at Ootacamund, which had been begun some years before he left England, required to be finished and furnished. The amount sanctioned by the Government of India for furniture was Rs. 125,000; but we have no details of the particular items on which this sum has been expended. There has been no expenditure no repairs.

MR. JOSEPH COWEN

Is the gentleman referred to the same Grant Duff who in this House denounced so strongly the extravagant expenditure on this and other public buildings in India?

MR. J. K. CROSS

said, this was a very large palace, and he dared say it had several times been denounced in that House; but Mr. Grant Duff was not in the least answerable for the building of it.