§ MR. BARTLEY (Islington, N.)In the absence of the right hon. Member for Cambridge University (Sir J. Gorst), I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for India whether the Lieutenant Governor of Bengal was officially authorised to admit, in his letter to The Times on the Behar Cadastral Survey, that he wished the state of the finances enabled the Government to bear a larger portion of the expenditure; whether the Government of India has finally decided that seven-eighths of the large cost of this survey shall take the form of new land taxation in Behar, levied on the landlords and the tenants in equal shares; whether this decision has been approved by the Secretary of State, as not infringing the permanent settlement; and whether the section of the Bengal Tenancy Act, under which the taxation will be imposed, expressly limited such taxation to a local area?
MR. G. RUSSELLThe Secretary of State is not responsible for the letter written by Sir C. Elliott which appeared in The Times of 12th August. No final decision has yet been passed in regard to the cost of the Behar Cadastral Survey. Yes. Chapter 10, Clause 114, of the Bengal Tenancy Act uses the words "local area."