On this day the following question was raised in the British Parliament on the purchase of steel rails and fish plates for the East Indian Railway Company.
The question came from Sir Charles Cayzer, Barrow-in-Furness: “I beg to ask the Secretary of State for India whether he is aware that the East Indian Railway Company, whose railway was built by British capital, under Government guarantee, and of which the Government are now the owners by purchase, have recently purchased 7,708 tons of steel rails and fish plates from the Maryland Steel Company, of America, and that the same are to be shipped direct from America to Calcutta; whether he is aware that 3,000 to 4,000 tons of steel rails are now being shipped by the steam ship “City of Dundee” from Baltimore to Calcutta; whether he is aware that the tender of the Maryland Steel Company of America is nearly one pound per ton lower than any British tender; if he will state the quality and price per ton of steel rails and fish plates in each of the tenders received; and, whether some of the other Indian guaranteed railways make it a condition of their tenders that the goods shall be of British manufacture; and, if so, why the East Indian Railway Company cannot also do so?”
He was reassured by the Secretary of State for India that the purchase from an American company had been a better bargain than a purchase from any British firm would have been.