§ MR. CAINEI beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for India if it is true that the Secretary of State for India has placed upon the Indian Revenues a charge of £10,000 a year for 20 years, as a contribution towards a telegraph cable between the Mauritius and Zanzibar; and if he is aware that the entire export and import trade between India and the Mauritius is steadily decreasing, and only amounted last year to a total of about £110,000; if so, upon what ground is India to be called on to contribute this heavy subsidy for the working of a telegraph cable which will be of no direct commercial value to India, and from an island which has no dependence, for any purpose of military or naval administration, upon the Indian Government?
* MR. G. RUSSELLThe answer to the first question is, Yes. (2) The statistics of trade do not show a steady decrease. The exports and imports in 1891–2 amounted to a total of 2,870,000 tens of rupees, not to about £110,000. The construction of the cable was recommended in the interests of India, and mainly on strategic grounds, by a De- 1650 partmental Committee of Inquiry which reported in March, 1891, after full consideration.