§ SIR WILLIAM WEDDERBURN (Banffshire)I beg to ask the Secretary of State for India (1) whether he will postpone approval of the new Sedition Acts just passed at Calcutta until the House of Commons has an opportunity of considering whether these Acts have the effect of curtailing or interfering with the liberty of the Press in India? (2) I beg at the same time to ask the Secretary of State for India whether his attention has been drawn to the fact that the Sedition Acts recently passed in India allow the district magistrate to try political cases in which he is himself the complainant, and empower him to require from editors security for good behaviour under the chapter relating to vagrants, suspected persons, and habitual offenders; and whether he will disallow these provisions, as infringing his declaration that the law would be practically unaltered?
§ THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIAIn reply to the two questions of the hon. Baronet, I may remind him, that the Acts to which he refers having been duly passed, and having received the assent of the Viceroy, are already part of the law of India, and will remain so unless I shall advise the Queen to disallow them. As soon as I have received the authentic copies of both these Acts, which the law requires to be sent home, I will cause copies to be presented to Parliament, and, as I have already stated more than once, shall be perfectly ready to be held responsible for any advice which I may think fit to give.