§ SIR GEORGE BARTLEY ( Islington, N.)To ask the Secretary of State for India whether, seeing that the shareholders of the East Indian Railway in 1880, the Eastern Bengal Railway in 1884, and the Scinde Railway in 1886, were paid off in annuity stock and in Government stock by Act of Parliament, and in amounts being the full equivalent of the average market value of the properties appropriated by the State, and that the Great Indian Peninsula Railway Company's settlement in 1900 resulted in the proprietors receiving annuity stock valued at £150 instead of the approved Parliamentary assessed average value of £174 per £100 stock; and whether, seeing that the purchase clauses of these four, and of the Bombay Railway in 1905, and that of the Madras Railway Company in 1907, are practically similar, and in view of the protest made on 31st March on behalf of trustees, banks, insurance companies, and other shareholders by the chairmen of the Bombay Railway Company and the Madras Railway Company, as to the character of this Great Indian Peninsula Railway Company settlement and its injurious effect on their stock, arising from the uncertainty regarding their future treatment, he will consider the advisability of appointing a Select Committee to decide which of these precedents should be followed in 1905 and 1907.
(Answered by Secretary Lord George Hamilton.) If it should be decided to purchase either of the two lines in question, and to effect the purchase by means of an annuity, it would, I think, at the time of purchase, be desirable to consider the question whether the power vested by statute in the Secretary of State for India in Council of creating capital stock for the redemption of the annuity should be exercised. I can, however, hold out no prospect that the decision of this question will be entrusted to a Select Committee of this House or to anybody other than the Secretary of State in Council, to whom the control of the revenues of India is by law confided.