§ MR. SWIFT MACNEILLI beg to ask the Secretary of State for India whether, in the transactions whereby the property and interests of the Great Indian Peninsula Railway Company were taken over and acquired by the Government of India, account was taken of the debt due to the State in respect of sums advanced from India's general revenues to make up the dividends guaranteed to the company or for other purposes; and seeing that the aggregate total of these advances to the three remaining 928 guaranteed companies (including the Great Indian Peninsula) still amounts to over Rx. 35,000,000, can he state what means, if any, there are by which the Indian revenues may recover the amount of those advances.
§ LORD G. HAMILTONUnder contract of 30th November, 1870, between the Secretary of State for India in Council and the Great Indian Peninsula Railway Company, the company gave up its right to more than half the surplus profits in the event of advances of interest being entirely repaid, and in return the Government abandoned all claim to repayment of such advances in any other manner. Similar arrangements were made with the Bombay, Baroda, and Central India and Madras Railway Companies.