§ SIR EDWARD SASSOON (Hythe)I beg to ask the Secretary of State for India whether he is aware that the difference of a sixteenth of a penny ordinarily made by the India Council between the sale of bills and telegraphic transfers represents a charge of 9½ per cent. per annum; and whether, in view of this impost upon banking and commercial transactions, he will give instructions for reducing the difference by one moiety, except on occasions when conditions of financial stringency prevail in India.
§ LORD G. HAMILTONThe difference of a sixteenth of a penny per rupee 552 between the price of bills on India and that of telegraphic transfers represents a charge of 9½ per cent. per annum if it can be assumed that all such bills, whether drawn on Calcutta, Madras, or Bombay, can be presented in fifteen days; but this is not the case. To give the telegraphic transfers at only one-thirty-secondth of a penny more than the bills would, with the present rate of discount, be in effect to lend the money at cheaper rates than that at which the Presidency Banks are lending it.