§ MR. BURNIE (Swansea, Town)I beg to ask the Secretary of State for India on what grounds the India Office, 928 after causing inquiries to be made, have decided not to aid the two young East Indians who are now in a destitute condition at Swansea to return to India; whether he is aware that but for the charity of strangers they would have to starve or go into the workhouse; whether he can suggest some way, official or otherwise, by which these well-deserving young men may be enabled to return home; and whether he is aware that similarly distressed Europeans in India would be enabled to return to their respective countries?
§ MR. H. H. FOWLERIt is not the general practice of the Secretary of State in Council to defray out of the Revenues of India the passage to India of natives who, like these two oculists, have come to this country for purposes of their own; it is only for special and exceptional reasons that he does so, and it was held after consideration that such reasons did not exist in this case. It is true that destitute Europeans in India are, under the provisions of the European Vagrancy Act, 1874, sent to Europe if they have been arrested as vagrants and have passed through a workhouse.