§ MR. BRADLAUGHI beg to ask the tinder Secretary of State for India whether the Secretary of State can give the House any information respecting the state and prospects of agriculture in the North-West Provinces and Oudh; whether he is aware that the wheat crop has greatly suffered, and that, even reckoning land under canal irrigation, it is anticipated that there will not be a two-anna (or one-eight) yield; whether 668 prices of good grains are already rising in the United Provinces; and whether fears are entertains d of great scarcity, if not of actual famine?
SIR J. GORSTIn reply to the first paragraph of the question of the hon. Member I have to say that the latest Report—that for the week ending March 19—shows that the hill district of Humaon was the only one in which a serious failure of crops was reported. My answer to the second paragraph is that the anticipation of March 12 was that the wheat crop would be two-thirds of the average. The answer to paragraphs 3 and 4 is in the negative. Of 18 central markets noticed in the Report of March 19 the price was stationary at six, rising at five, falling at five, and unsteady at two.