§ MR. SAMUEL SMITHI beg to ask the Secretary of State for India, whether he can give the House any information regarding the death rate of coolies employed in the coal mines of Assam; whether he is aware that the 13 Calcutta press represent that rate to be very high, and also that a very large percentage are always on the sick list; whether the Indian Government have any information to show that this is caused by a forced change of diet to rice; and, whether the Government could make regulations enforcing the supply to immigrants of the same kind of food they had been previously accustomed to, in the same way as is done for Native soldiers in the Indian Army?
§ THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA (Lord GEORGE HAMILTON,) Middlesex, EalingThe coal-mining industry in Assam is, comparatively speaking, a very small industry, employing little more than a thousand coolies. I have no information as to the death-rate prevailing among them, but I have seen a letter on the subject from a visitor to Assam, published in the Calcutta newspapers, in which it is stated that the death-rate and sick-rate are high, but no figures are given. The suggestion that evil effects are produced by forced change to rice diet seems improbable, inasmuch as most of these coolies are drawn from rice-consuming districts. As at present advised I see no occasion for the issue of regulations on this subject, and I may add that the writer of the letter above mentioned bears testimony to the excellence of existing arrangements for feeding and housing the coolies, and for providing them with medical care.