§ MR. BRYCEasked the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Whether the attention of Her Majesty's Government has been called to the injuries now being inflicted on the peaceable inhabitants of Armenia, both Christians and Mohammedans, by the Kurds who have been driven back from Persia into Turkish territory, and to the conduct of the Porte in quartering Kurdish nomads upon the Armenian villagers; 909 and, whether Her Majesty's Government has already represented, or will represent, to the Porte the necessity of ceasing this practice of quartering ferocious tribes on its unarmed subjects, and the duty of taking prompt and vigorous action to check the excesses of the Kurds?
§ SIR CHARLES W. DILKESir, we have heard from Vice Consul Clayton that fugitive Kurds from Persia have been quartered by the Turkish authorities upon the villagers in the country to the south-east of Lake Van, and that the villagers have been ordered to support the fugitives for the winter. Colonel Clayton's Report came through the Embassy at Constantinople; and Her Majesty's Ambassador, who is greatly interested in the condition of the Armenian population, will make representations in regard to the hardship entailed on the villagers by having to maintain these fugitives, if he has a favourable opportunity of doing so, or thinks that such representations are likely to be of use.