MR. BRODIE HOAREOn behalf of Sir SEYMOUR KING, I beg to ask the Secretary of State for India, whether he is pledged to give the concession for the Grand Chord Line, viz., from Mugulserai to Barakar, to the East India Railway Company; whether he has granted to the East India Railway 1159 Company a concession to build from Mogulserai to Chergotty; whether he is aware of the strong feeling, repeatedly expressed through the Chamber of Commerce and otherwise, entertained by the mercantile community of Calcutta against granting the East India Railway Company a perpetual monopoly of the traffic between that port and Oude, the Northwest Provinces, and the Panjab; and, whether he will, in deference to this feeling, arrange with the Bengal and Nagpur Railway Company, or some other line, to give an alternative route from Mogulserai into Calcutta?
§ LORD GEORGE HAMILTONIt has been determined that the Chord Line, between Mogulserai and Barakar, shall, when constructed, be part of the East India Railway system, and the construction of a line from Mogulserai by Chergotty to Gya, forming the first instalment of the Chord Line, has accordingly been entrusted to the East India Railway Company. The opinions of the mercantile communities in India have been communicated from time to time to the Government of India and to the Secretary of State, and have been duly considered, together with the other circumstances of the case; but there is no present intention of constructing any line between Mogulserai and Calcutta other than that which I have mentioned.