HC Deb 27 October 1902 vol 113 cc806-7
MR. CAINE (Cornwall, Camborne)

I beg to ask the Secretary of State for India if any action has been taken between the Imperial and the Indian Governments with regard to the recommendations contained in paragraph 360 of the Report of the Indian Expenditure Commission, urging that His Majesty's Government on the one hand and on the other hand the Secretary of State in Council, after consultation with the Government of India, should draw a Treasury Minute authoritatively settling the extent to which India has a direct and substantial interest in certain clearly-defined areas of the Empire outside the boundaries of British India; has such a Minute been prepared and authorised; and, if so, will it be made public.

I beg also to ask the Secretary of State for India if India is to be held to have any direct or substantial interest in Somaliland; and, if so, to what extent; and will any portion of the cost of the present expedition against the Mullah be chargeable upon Indian Revenues, and to what extent.

THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA (Lord GEORGE HAMILTON,) Middlesex, Ealing

Perhaps I may be allowed to answer these two Questions together. If the hon. Gentleman will refer to pages fourteen to seventeen of the Parliamentary Paper, No. 169, which was ordered by this House to be printed in May last, he will see that an agreement has been arrived at as to the matters to which his Question relates, but that it was decided to ratify it by publishing the correspondence on the subject between the Treasury and the India Office, rather than by the drafting of a Treasury minute. He will also see that, under this agreement, the Government of India are not to be regarded as having any direct or substantial interest in the scene of the present operations in Somaliland. Accordingly, no portion of the cost of those operations will be chargeable to Indian Revenues.