§ Major POLEasked the Secretary of State for India if he has received from the Government of India a report of the present position in regard to the cultivation of cinchona and the manufacture and distribution of quinine in India and in regard to the policy of the Government of India in this matter, in view of the facts brought out in the statement of the director of botanical survey in India, in his report for 1928–29, that the poor in India are unable to purchase quinine at the price at which it is sold in India and that charitable dispensaries have to turn malaria-stricken patients away empty or with inadequate doses?
§ Mr. BENNI have not yet received the report in question, but from a report 2071W on the progress made in giving effect to the recommendations of the Royal Commission on Agriculture in India I see that the Government of India are in consultation with the Provincial Governments on the question of centralising the whole subject of cinchona cultivation and the manufacture and distribution of quinine, which according to the Royal Commission was the first step towards the reduction of the price of quinine in India to a level at which it would be possible to embark on an intensive anti-malaria campaign.