§ MR. HANBURY (Preston)asked the Under Secretary of State for India, Whether, looking to the magnitude of the concession in the case of the Burmah Ruby Mines, and to the fact that it has already once been put up to open competition, he can state the precise procedure which the India Office will adopt as to the final hour for sending in tenders, the persons in whose presence tenders are to be opened, and other precautions for securing the fairest possible and most public competition?
§ THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE (Sir JOHN GORST) (Chatham)Tenders will, according to advertisement, be received at the India Office up to 1660 midnight on November 21. No envelope which is known to contain a tender will be opened until noon on the 22nd, and they will then be opened in the presence of the Under Secretaries of State.
§ SIR GEORGE CAMPBELL (Kirkcaldy, &c.)Is it intended to give a monopoly of the Ruby Mines to a firm in London, and to deprive the Natives of their rights of searching for rubies?
§ SIR JOHN GORSTsaid, that if the hon. Gentleman had read the advertisement he would have seen that it expressly decided that no Native right of any kind would be in the least infringed.