§ 13. Colonel YATEasked the Secretary of State for India what steps have been taken by the Government of India to put a stop to the mixing, adulterating, and watering of Indian-grown cotton; and whether any legislation has yet been introduced to prevent the adulteration of other Indian exports?
§ Mr. MONTAGUThe Government of India are now considering, in consultation with the chambers of commerce in India, the measures to be adopted to prevent the adulteration of Indian products, including cotton. Similar inquiries are being undertaken by the Indian Trade Commission in London. Special legislation has not been introduced, and hitherto the view held by the Government of India is that it would be extremely difficult to carry such legislation into effect, that trade would be seriously hampered, and that, as a practical remedy, such measures would prove ineffectual. While keeping an open mind on the subject, the Government of India consider that the proper agency for dealing with these abuses is the trade itself—either by an arrangement between exporters and buyers that the latter should insist on freedom from adulteration or by the establishment, under the control of chambers of commerce, of some system under which the purity of products would be certified before export.
§ Colonel YATEWill the right hon. Gentleman see to it that some system, at any rate, is inaugurated to put a stop to this adulteration, and not leave it entirely to local option?
§ Mr. MONTAGUMy hon. and gallant Friend no doubt will have read the remarks of the Viceroy upon this very subject.
§ Young Persons (Imprisonment).
§ 80. Lord H. CAVENDISH-BENTINCKasked the Home Secretary whether he will state the number of persons under the age 1406 of fourteen at present in prisons in England awaiting trial or on remand and under sentence; the number of persons between the ages of fourteen and sixteen in prisons in each of those two categories; and for what reasons the persons awaiting trial or on remand were, committed to prison instead of being sent to places of detention or remand homes?
§ Mr. HEWINSOn 28th June there were in prison one boy under fourteen and twelve boys between fourteen and sixteen. There were no girls under sixteen. The boy under fourteen had been found, on 24th June, guilty of wilful murder and insane, and he will be removed to a suitable institution at the earliest possible moment. Of the twelve boys between fourteen and sixteen, four were committed on conviction, six on remand or awaiting trial, and two on postponement of sentence. All were certified by the Courts to be so unruly or depraved as to be unfit for places of detention.