HC Deb 16 August 1878 vol 242 cc2089-90
MR. MORGAN LLOYD

I take this opportunity of asking, Whether the statement in the "Daily News" this morning with regard to the health of the troops at Cyprus is correct or not, because, according to that account, the state of the troops is very alarming? The fever seems to be very extensive indeed, and it would seem that the troops are cantoned in places which must necessarily be unhealthy. It would appear to those who, like myself, perhaps, know very little about the matter, that instead of making an old place like Nicosia the military centre and capital of the Island, it would be better to commence in a new place altogether, where there was no fever such as seems to be so very prevalent there. I wish to know, whether there is any foundation for the very alarming statement of the "Daily News?"

COLONEL STANLEY

Sir, in reply to Questions which were put to me two days ago, it was then my duty to state that a telegram received from Sir Garnet Wolseley contained the announcement that the sickness was about 6 per cent of the men in hospital, mostly for fever of a mild type. I have since then had telegrams about various other matters of business, and there has been no reference, except in one of them, to any further increase of sickness. I may also say that letters, both public and private, which I have had, although they refer to cases of fever being undoubtedly very numerous, speak of them as of a comparatively mild type, although some of them, no doubt, been complicated by sunstroke, owing to the intense heat. There has been, so far as we are aware, only three deaths since our troops first landed in Cyprus, and in a telegram which came to hand this morning, about other matters, there are words which certainly do not appear very clear, but which undoubtedly imply that such sickness as there has been is on the decrease. I can only say that it is as much a puzzle to me as it is to some hon. Members, the discrepancy between the official and the private accounts which I receive and the accounts which appear in some organs of the daily Press. I am not saying we can have absolute knowledge on the subject. I can only give the House that knowledge which I possess, and watch the question as carefully as possible. I may add that upon the earliest indications of there being an increase of sickness, we took the precaution of placing six doctors under orders to go out, and those officers either have sailed or are on the point of sailing.