§ MR. STANSFELD (Halifax)I wish, Sir, to ask the Under Secretary of State for India, Whether he is now prepared to make the statement he promised as to the recent correspondence with the Government of India on the subject of the Contagious Diseases Acts?
§ THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE (Sir JOHN GORST) (Chatham)(1.) In consequence of the action taken by the Secretary of State upon the Questions put to him in "another place" last year by the Lord Bishop of Lichfield, what is known as the regimental system has been absolutely stopped. The Commander in Chief has prohibited women from accompanying regiments on march or to camp, and also from residing in regimental bazaars. (2.) The administration of the Contagious Diseases Act in Bombay, Madras and Bassein, the only places in which it is in force, has been suspended by the Government of India under a power contained in the Act. (3.) The Government of India is now engaged in a revision of the Regulations made for preventing the spread of venereal disease in cantonments, under Section 27 of Act III. of 1880; and a despatch is going out to India from the Secretary of State in Council which will prohibit the compulsory examination of women, and the making of any regulations which can be justly construed into a legalization of prostitution.