§ MR. CAINE (Cornwall, Camborne)I beg to ask the Secretary of State for India if his attention has been called to the ratio per 1,000 of mean strength of admissions to hospital for venereal disease of soldiers in the military districts of Allahabad, Rohilkand, Bangalore, Rangoon, Mandalay, and Bombay; if he is aware that the aggregate admissions in these six districts average 351 per 1,000 as compared with 250 per 1,000 over the whole of India, inclusive of these six districts, and only 174 per 1,000 in the six districts of Sirhind, Poona, Mhow, Aden, Quetta, and Nagpur, and if he will order a careful inquiry into the cause of this rate in the six former districts.
§ THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA (Lord G. HAMILTON,) Middlesex, EalingThe figures given by the hon. Member are substantially correct. The admission rate for venereal diseases among the British Army in India as a whole has, however, been reduced from 522 per 1,000 men, at which I found it in 1895, to 313 per 1,000 in 1899, a reduction of over 40 per cent. in four years, and the districts which the hon. Member instances as specially bad ones have shared materially in this reduction, the mean admission rate in them having fallen in the same period from 519 to 352. I believe that the Government of India are doing all that they legitimately can to combat this evil, and I do not think that the inquiry which the hon. Member 827 suggests would yield any valuable results.
§ MR. CAINEThe noble Lord appears to have missed the point of my question, as to whether the rate is not excessive in one district as compared with others.
§ LORD G. HAMILTONThere are considerable variations.
§ LORD G. HAMILTONThat is not possible.