§ MR. CAINEI beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for India if it 1260 is true, as stated in page 11 of a Paper read before the East India Association by Mr. A. K. Connell, and published by that Association, that, in spite of the refusal of the Parliamentary Committee of 1884 on Indian Railways to sanction the approbation of any portion of the Famine Insurance Fund to guarantee interest on capital raised for Indian Railways, a portion of that fund has, in 1886–8, been hypothecated, to pay interest charges on capital raised by the Indian Midland and Bengal Nagpore Railway Companies?
SIR J. GORSTThere is no such thing as a Famine Insurance Fund, which cannot, therefore, have been hypothecated. But in December, 1885, the then Secretary of State sanctioned the charge against the Famine Insurance Grant during the ensuing five years of the interest on capital raised by the Indian Midland and Bengal-Nagpore Railway Companies.