HC Deb 27 August 1907 vol 182 cc378-9
MR. REES (Montgomery Boroughs)

To ask the Secretary of State for India how many wagons and engines have been ordered out of the £800,000 taken for that purpose from the gold currency reserve, and how many the East Indian Railway have bought out of the one and a-half million pounds raised by that company in debentures.

(Answered by Mr. Secretary Morley.) The decision to appropriate a portion of the profits on the coinage of silver to the provision of rolling stock for railways enabled the Secretary of State to order, in addition to what had previously been ordered, 1,450 open coal wagons and 4,242 covered wagons, but no engines, at a cost of £930,000. In regard to the East Indian Railway Company, no further sum was available for the purchase of rolling stock in consequence of the recent issue of debenture stock. The amount † See (4) Debates, clxxix., 1830, clxxxi., 1082–3. obtained by this issue is taken in reduction of the company's overdrafts, the total advanced to the company by the Secretary of State amounting to a considerably larger sum.