§ SIR JOHN KENNAWAY (Devon Honiton)I beg to ask the Secretary of State for India whether, seeing that the Viceroy has stated that the whole course of operations in relief of famine must depend largely on the course of prices, he would arrange with the Indian Government to give in its weekly telegram the prices of different grains in two or three chief towns in the worst part of the famine districts, e.g. for Bengal, Mohkhari and Durbhanga, for Central Provinces, Jabalphur and Raipur; whether he would state the nature of the special measures to aid private trade which the Government of Bengal have been authorised to take in Behar; and, what action has been already taken to carry them out?
§ THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA (LORD GEORGE HAMILTON,) Middlesex, EalingI have asked the Government of India to add to its weekly telegram a statement of the price of the commonest food grain at one or two places in each famine-stricken province. A general account of special measures the Bengal Government proposed for stimulating grain trade in a few remote localities will be found in the famine papers which, I hope, will be presented within the next ten days. The authority for special measures was only to take effect in case of probable failure of supplies. I have learned from The 755 Bengal Gazette, received to-day, that one case of emergency has been reported in Chota Nagpur, but I am not yet able to state the precise procedure adopted by the Government to supplement the food supplies in this district.