SCHWANN (Manchester, N.)To ask the Secretary of State for India, has any report been received from the chief medical officer at Quetta, or through the political department at Simla, regarding the outbreak of typhus fever amongst the workmen on the NushkiSeistan Railway route, and cases of cholera at Quetta; and can some report be presented showing what progress has been made with the earthwork on that desert route, describing the sanitary conditions and the question as to water supply that is likely to affect the construction of the line and the future facilities for traffic such as the Nushki-Seistan Railway is intended to offer.
(Answered by Secretary Lord George Hamilton.) A railway is being constructed from Quetta to Nushki, but no proposal for its extension from Nushki towards Seistan has been made or sanctioned. I have no information as to the prevalence of epidemics among the workers on the Quetta-Nushki Railway, but I have heard that there is an epidemic of typhus at Quetta and in other parts of Baluchistan. Cholera is also reported near Quetta and at Nushki.