§ MR. KEAY (Elgin and Nairn)I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for India whether his attention has been called to the numerous barbarities which have been committed by the present ruler of the Indore State, Siraji Rao, both before and since his installation; whether he is aware that, in consequence of the well known brutal character of Siraji Rao, his late father, His Highness Tukoji Rao, had set him aside from the succession, and that, after his father died, his own mother begged that the Agent to the Governor General for Central India, Sir Lepel Griffin, would not recommend his installation to the Government of India, on the score that serious trouble would overtake the Indore State if he were made ruler; whether he is aware that Sir Lepel Griffin himself had, up to the date of the father's death, adopted the same attitude towards Siraji Rao as his own father and mother, although after that event he reported he was reformed; whether he is aware that one of the first acts of the new ruler was to dismiss and expel 937 from the Indore State all the trusted advisers of his father, and to endeavour to outrage and plunder the ladies of his late father's family, and to put in chains, and subject to starvation and public ignominy, the Revenue Officer formerly in charge of the Crown Lands, and that he has recently expelled from the State his own uncle, Sir Cassu Rao Dadasahib, K.C.S.I., to whom the Court ladies have been looking as their natural protector; and whether he can inform the House what steps the Government of India are taking to provide a prompt remedy for this state of affairs?
SIR J. GORSTThe subject of this question is best known to the House as the Maharajah Holkar. The answer to the first paragraph of the hon. Member's question is in the negative. The attention of the Secretary of State has not been called to the "numerous barbarities" which are said to have been committed. The answer to the second paragraph is also in the negative. So far as the information in the Secretary of State's possession shows, no previous objection was made to the Maharajah's succession, which took place four years ago, either by his father or mother. The answer to the third paragraph of the question is that Sir Lepel Griffin recommended his immediate succession. In answer to paragraphs 4 and 5 I have to say that the Reports received from the Government of India do not bear out the allegations. The last Report, although not altogether favourable, shows a tendency to the improvement in the Government of the State; and no interference is at present contemplated.
§ MR. T. M. HEALY) (Longford, N.Upon a point of order, Mr. Speaker, may I ask whether it is regular to speak, as this question does, of "the well-known brutal character of Siraji Rao?"
§ *MR. SPEAKERThose words ought to have been omitted from the question. They seem to have crept in through inadvertence.