§ MR. CAINEI bog to ask the Under Secretary of State for India whether the Secretary of State has seen the work recently written by Mr. Grierson, of the Bengal Civil Service, entitled Notes on the District of Gaya, a district containing a population of 2,125,000, according to the Census of 1881, in which it is shown that cultivators of 12½ acres have an average income of only Rs.12.4 per head per annum for the members of their families, and that a labourer and his wife, though fully employed, can earn only Rs.41.12 per annum, which, for a family of four, is Rs.10.7 per head, or Rs.4.9 short of the Rs.15 which Mr. Grierson estimates is required for the bare necessaries of life, not counting expenditure on religious or social ceremonies which are compulsory; whether he is aware that in the district of Gaya all the persons of the labouring classes, and 10 per cent. of the cultivating and artisan classes, or 45 per cent. of the total population, are insufficiently clothed, or insufficiently fed, or both; and whether the Secretary of State will recommend the Government of India to appoint a small export Commission to inquire into, and report upon, the general condition of the small cultivators and labourers of the Gaya district, and will cause further inquiry to be made if similar distress 522 exists in other districts in the Lieutenant Governorship of Bengal?
MR. GEORGE RUSSELLThe Secretary of State has not yet seen the work referred to by my hon. Friend, but he attaches great importance to any information bearing on the condition of the people of India, and will forward a copy of the question to the Government of India for their observations.