§ MR. BAILLIE COCHRANEasked the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Whether Her Majesty's Government has received any official information of the cruelties reported to be committed on prisoners of war by both parties in the war now raging in Spain; and, if so, whether Her Majesty's Government will follow the precedent of 1835, when Lord Eliot and Colonel Gurwood were sent out as Commissioners to the head quarters of both armies to remonstrate against the barbarities practised alike by 1445 the forces of the Government and the forces of Don Carlos, which led to the Eliot Convention, so conducive to the interests of humanity?
§ MR. BOURKESir, Her Majesty's Minister at Madrid (Mr. Layard) has reported that certain cruelties have been committed by both parties in the war in Spain during the last two years. Those cruelties have been inflicted upon prisoners of war as well as upon other persons. With regard to the second Question, I would remind my hon. Friend that the circumstances of the year 1834 are not parallel with those of the present day. In 1834, when the Carlist War broke out, a proclamation was issued by the Government announcing formally that they would treat as rebels all those who took up arms in favour of Don Carlos, and consequently the officers of the Government shot nearly every armed Carlist who fell into their hands. The Carlist Chiefs immediately retaliated, and put to death the officers and soldiers of the Queen's Army who became their prisoners. In the spring of 1835, the Duke of Wellington was Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, and made an effort to put a stop to those atrocities. He drew up a Convention himself, and entrusted it to Lord Eliot—the present Earl of St. Germans—and Colonel Gurwood, and they proceeded to Spain with that Convention. Owing to the ability and tact of Lord Eliot, that Convention was signed by both parties, and no doubt it had a humanizing effect upon the war. But at the present time no such proclamation or announcement as that of 1834 has been issued by the Government of Spain, and although I fear many acts of cruelty have been committed, yet those acts are few as compared with those of the first Carlist War. Her Majesty's Government, therefore, are not at present prepared to follow the precedent of 1835; but I can assure my hon. Friend that they will lose no opportunity of bringing their influence to bear upon the parties in the war in favour of peace and humanity, whenever they think that their interposition is calculated to have a beneficial effect.