§ SIR ROPER LETHBRIDGE (Kensington, N.)I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for India whether he is aware that the Bengal Board of Revenue, and very nearly all the divisional 1895 and district officers of Bengal, who have been consulted about the proposed Cadastral Survey of Behar, have reported in a sense adverse to it; whether protests against the undertaking have been received by the Lieutenant Governor of Bengal from all the leading Native Associations of the Province, including the Association representing the occupying tenants as well as that representing the landholders; whether the recorded opinions of the Board of Revenue, of Mr. Secretary Cotton, of Mr. Halliday, and of the other leading officials of Bengal, together with the memorials of the various Native Associations of the Province, will be considered by the Secretary of State before finally sanctioning the survey; and whether copies of those opinions and memorials will be laid upon the Table of the House?
THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA (Mr. CURZON,) Lancashire, SouthportThe Secretary of State has seen the Reports of the Board of Revenue and other Bengal officers, some of which doubt the expediency of the survey. I stated the other day, in answer to a similar question, that representations against the survey had been received and publicly answered by the Government of Bengal. The Reports in question, with the exception of Mr. Cotton's, which has not been received, have been considered by the Secretary of State, and are included in the Return now being printed. Copies of the memorials of Local Bodies have not yet reached the Secretary of State, though he has seen mention of them in the newspapers.