§ MR. WILLIAM REDMONDI beg to ask the Secretary of State for India whether his attention has been directed to the statements in the official gazetteers of India respecting the positions and sanitary conditions of the town and fort of Ahmednagar, now being used as a Boer prison; whether he is aware that Major Gambier, R.E., reported in 1873, after the drainage operations, that all who lived in the fort, both Europeans and natives, suffered from fever; and that, in consequence, all troops were withdrawn from inside the fort and quartered in barracks built outside it; and seeing that the mortality of Ahmednagar town was 79.75 in 1899, 55.04 in 1896, and 61.63 in 1897, and that the mortality of children under one year of age was 524.89 in 1899, against an average in that year of 196.97 for the whole Bombay Province, whether he will consider the advisability of the removal of the Boer prisoners to some other station.
§ *THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA (Lord G. HAMILTON, Middlesex, Baling)There is no intention of removing the Boer prisoners from Ahmednagar cantonment, which is one of the healthiest and most popular garrison stations in India. Major Gambier's report is twenty-seven years old, and was made before the sanitary improvements were effected which have since made the fort salubrious. The mortality statistics quoted are misleading, and include urban areas outside the town. During the famine of 1899 there was a heavy mortality amongst the distressed people who flocked into the town from the drought-affected districts.
§ MR. WILLIAM REDMONDWill the noble Lord be kind enough to say in what way the figures are misleading?
§ *LORD G. HAMILTONThe figures for the year 1898, which are the lowest in the four years in question, are omitted. Then the figures apply to exceptional famine conditions, and, as I 262 have said, include urban areas outside the town.