§ *MR. J. E. GORDON (Elgin and Nairn)I beg to ask the Secretary of State for India whether he is now prepared to publish the manner of calculating the rate of interest used in connection with the amount of Great Indian Peninsula Railway Company's annuities; whether it was identical with the process employed when the Indian Government terminated the lease and repaid the capital of the Seinde and Eastern Bengal Railway Companies; and, if not, what cause there was for altering the precedents of the past twenty years.
§ THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA (Lord G. HAMILTON, Middlesex, Ealing)The Secretary of State has no knowledge of the manner in which the rate of interest was calculated by the Governors of the Bank of England in any of the cases mentioned.
§ *MR. J. E. GORDONIs the noble Lord not aware that a clause in the Scinde Railway Act, 1886, declares that "whereas the rate of interest to be used in calculating the said annuity has been ascertained in accordance with the provision…. And such annuity has accordingly been calculated and created by the Secretary of State"?
§ [No answer was returned.]
§ MR. J. E. GORDONI beg to ask the Secretary of State for India if he is prepared to accept the method and details of the recent Great Indian Peninsula Railway Company's repayment as precedents governing the approaching repayment in 1905 and 1907 of the capital of the Bombay Railway Company and the Madras Railway Company.
§ LORD G. HAMILTONThe procedure to be adopted, if the Government purchase by annuity, will be that which is prescribed by the contract, namely, a reference to the Governor or Deputy-Governor of the Bank of England to decide the rate of interest which shall govern the annuity. But, as I have often before stated, I have no cognisance of, or authority over, the method or details by or upon which the Governor or Deputy Governor of the Bank may arrive at the determination upon the point referred to them.
§ MR. J. E. GORDONI beg to give notice that I shall bring this matter before the House to-morrow.