§ COLONEL COLTHURSTasked the Under Secretary of State for India, Whether it has been brought to his notice that missionaries, officially engaged in the distribution of relief in Southern India during the famine of 1877–8, had at the same time been engaged in lending money (at 18 per cent.) on mortgages of the lands of the natives, as shown by cases recently tried in the Law Courts of the Tinavelly and Madura districts, where judgments have been obtained for sums amounting (by accumulated interest) to nearly double the original loans; and, if there would be any objection to give a Return showing the number of such cases during the last four years?
§ MR. J. K. CROSSWe have no information on this subject at the India Office; and, from the papers with which my hon. and gallant Friend has furnished me, it does not appear that the action attributed to the missionaries in this matter is one with which the Government of India can interfere.