asked the Under Secretary of State for India, Whether the Government will be prepared to meet the emergency of intense and wide-spread famine declaring itself in those Bengal districts, such as Hooghly and Burdwan, hitherto classed as seats of merely partial distress, and numbering a population of upwards of fourteen millions?

, in reply, said, the preparations on the part of the Indian Government to meet the scarcity in Bengal were not based merely on the wants of exceptional districts, but on the total number of the population in Bengal likely to stand in need of relief. The districts mentioned in the Question were consequently included within the scope of the measures taken.