Mr. MacCALLUM SCOTTasked the Under-Secretary of State for India whether, in drawing up the plans for the creation of a new Lieutenant-Governorship in Council administering the areas of Behar, Chota Nagpur, and Orissa the Government has reconsidered Lord Curzon's original proposal that the Uriya-speaking population of the district of Ganjam, now included in Madras with a large majority of people of different race and language, should be associated with the kindred Uriya-speaking population of Orissa for purposes of government and administration; whether this proposal would be acceptable to the whole of the Uriya-speaking peoples; whether the recent census figures show that some of the objections 432 which led to the proposal being abandoned were unfounded; and whether, in view of these census figures and of the favourable opportunity presented by the changes in Bengal, he will ask the Indian Government to express its views on this proposal?
§ The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for INDIA (Mr. Montagu)Such questions of readjustment of provincial boundaries as the very important one to which my hon. Friend refers are engaging the most careful consideration of the Government of India and the Secretary of State. But the Secretary of State has decided that there shall be no immediate readjustment of boundaries in connection with the formation of the new provinces announced in the King's Speech at Delhi. These corrections can always be made subsequently if accumulated evidence justify them, but I think my hon. Friend will agree that such great changes should not be complicated at the outset by the transference from one Government to another of large sections of population.