§ MR. RYLANDSsaid, he thought the statement just made by the right hon. Gentleman fully justified the remarks he was about to make. He thought that before they agreed to the Motion for the Adjournment of the House, they were entitled to more information than had been afforded respecting the charges of the Afghan War. The right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer had told them that the question of apportioning the expenses raised very grave issues. ["Order!"]
§ MR. SPEAKERsaid, that there was an Order on the Paper for a Motion dealing with the subject, which was to be discussed at a later period of the evening. The observations of the hon. Member were, therefore, irregular at that time.
§ MR. RYLANDSsaid, the object of his rising was simply to ask the right hon. Gentleman to tell them, before they passed this Motion for Adjournment, whether the Government had come to a determination to charge any portion of the expenditure in connection with the war upon the Imperial Exchequer?—because, if so, it had always been the practice of previous Governments, when making a charge upon the Exchequer for such a purpose, to take the earliest opportunity possible to come forward and lay upon the Table a Vote of Credit for the purpose they proposed. He hoped he should not be considered out of Order if he impressed upon the Ministry the necessity of giving the House some information on this point before they adjourned——
§ MR. SPEAKERsaid, the hon. Gentleman was altogether out of Order in the remarks he was making.
§ LORD ELCHOwished to make a few remarks on a subject which had been debated on the previous day, but on which he had not been able to give his opinion at the time. On a former occasion he had asked, but had some difficulty in getting an answer to his Question, whether the Government believed or did not believe in the trustworthiness of the Report of the Rhodope Commissioners?
§ MR. DILLWYNrose to Order.
§ MR. SPEAKERsaid, that the ruling he had just given in the case of the hon. Member for Burnley did not apply to that of the noble Lord, who was not 959 debating a subject ordered to be taken into consideration on that day. At the same time, he doubted whether the subject could be introduced conveniently on a Motion for the Adjournment of the House.
§ LORD ELCHOsaid, he thought he should be in Order in referring to a subject which had been debated on a previous day—he meant the Rhodope Commission. He was in the House when the Question came up; but he took no part in the debate, partly because he had not the necessary documents with him, and partly because he was not very well satisfied with the course that had been taken by Her Majesty's Government. It would be in the recollection of the House that on a former occasion he asked a Question on the subject, and had considerable difficulty m getting an answer. He wanted to know, whether the Government believed or not in the trustworthiness of the Report of the Rhodope Commissioners?
§ MR. DILLWYNsaid, that as his hon. Friend the Member for Burnley had been called to Order for alluding to the Afghan War, he wished to ask, if the noble Lord was in Order in alluding to the Rhodope Commission?
§ MR. SPEAKERsaid, he had ruled the hon. Member for Burnley to be out of Order, because he was anticipating the discussion of a subject that would come on later in the evening. That objection did not apply to the remarks of the noble Lord; but, at the same time, he reminded him of the inconvenience of the course he was pursuing.
§ LORD ELCHOsaid, that it would be the last thing he should wish to do to intrude himself upon the House; but he was very anxious to say a few words now, because he might not have the chance of introducing the subject in the subsequent debate. The authenticity of the Rhodope Report was questioned by several hon. Gentlemen opposite, although it was the result of a Commission appointed by the Berlin Congress, and it had been signed by four out of the six Commissioners appointed. When the "Bulgarian horrors," as they were called, took place, no sooner was there a notice of anything in the newspapers than Questions were asked in Parliament concerning them. Thus, he found that when a voice—an almost solitary voice—sounded over sea and land, the voice 960 of a newspaper Correspondent—when that voice sounded in The Daily News of the 23rd of June, on the 26th and three days afterwards, the Duke of Argyll in the House of Lords, and Mr. W. E. Forster in the House of Commons, asked Questions regarding it. On the 8th of July another notice appeared in The Daily News, and on the 10th, Mr. Forster renewed his inquiries. On the 17th Mr. Baxter, revived the interrogatories. On the 16th of August, the question of the cruelties to the Bulgarians was again raised, and further attempts were made to penetrate the mystery in the official mind on the 6th, 7th, and 9th, and the 11th of August. The writer of the pamphlet from which he was reading said on the 5th of September that he was still depending upon a foreign source for any official information, and that foreign source was Mr. Schuyler. That pamphlet was dated Hawarden, the 6th of September, and it was entitled "Bulgarian Horrors," by the Eight Hon. W. E. Gladstone, M.P. Now, he had quoted that pamphlet to show that no sooner was the question of those "Bulgarian Horrors," raised in an anonymous way in the columns of the Press than five, six, seven, eight, eleven times was the subject immediately brought before the House by the hon. Gentlemen opposite, having no evidence whatever of the trustworthiness of the Report, except what the pamphlet contained and a foreign writer supplied. On the other hand, what happened with regard to the Rhodope Commission? As he had said—it was appointed by the Berlin Congress. It went into the inquiry—it took evidence in the way that the Commissioners had agreed upon among themselves, and the inquiry went on until the evidence became unfavourable to the Russian soldiery. No sooner did that take place than the Russian Commissioner objected; and his objection was backed by the Austrian Government, who said in a telegram—"The evidence of most of the refugees concerning the atrocities committed by the Russian soldiers is unanswerable." The Russian Commissioner wished to stop these accusations, and threatened if they went on he would retire, and so put an end to the Commission. But in spite of the remonstrance of the Russian Commissioner it did go on, and the Report had 961 become a Parliamentary document. Now, hon. Gentlemen opposite declined to admit that evidence. They looked upon as trustworthy the anonymous evidence which appeared in The Daily News and other papers. Now, Consul General Fawcett, in his Report, had said that Mr. Baring's evidence was taken in precisely the same way as the evidence taken by the Commission. He also stated that he knew that, for atrocities committed at Batak, Mussulmans had been hanged upon no other evidence than that of these Reports. He (Lord Elcho) had addressed a letter to Lord Shaftesbury—who had been Chairman at one of the meetings at St. James' Hall, and who was not the least intelligent man or the least accustomed to deal with public affairs—with reference to the Rhodope horrors. In his letter in answer, Lord Shaftesbury said—
I share the belief that the atrocities reported by the Rhodope Commissioners are strictly accurate. No one, I think, can read that document without coming to the conclusion that though it has not the usual cold and stilted tone of official papers it has a character of authenticity, and that the Russian Commissioner, aided by the German Commissioner, endeavoured in every way to suppress or evade the evidence. Probably, since the days when the Goths and Huns and Vandals overran Christendom, there is nothing to equal what is now recorded against the armies of the Czar.This was the ground upon which he ventured to bring this subject before the House. He would make no comments upon the inconsistencies of hon. Gentlemen or right hon. Gentlemen opposite. They no doubt shared the horror of Lord Shaftesbury and himself with regard to these atrocities; but it was to be regretted they showed so much anxiety to bring justice home to Mussulmans who had perpetrated horrors upon Christians, and so little desire to bring it home to Russian soldiers, who were guilty of horrors upon Mussulmans before which those other horrors paled.
§ MR. E. JENKINSrose to move the adjournment of the debate until after the debate upon the expenses of the Afghan War had been concluded. He supposed he should not be out of Order if, without referring at all to the substance of the debate, he pointed out that in the position in which the House was now placed, after the declaration of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, it was impossible that they could separate without having re- 962 ceived from the right hon. Gentleman some more specific statement as to what was the intention of the Government with regard to the apportionment of the expenditure.
§ MR. SPEAKERsaid, that it was not competent to the hon. Member to make this Motion, there being at this time another Motion before the House.
§ MR. HERSCHELLsaid, he could not allow the speech of the noble Lord the Member for Haddingtonshire to pass in silence. No doubt, it was extremely inexpedient to enter upon a discussion of the subject, because it was impossible to exhaust it on that occasion. He had himself gone into the matter very carefully, and was prepared to discuss it at the proper time with the noble Lord or with anyone else. Nothing could be less chivalrous than to vent any ill-feeling they might have against Russia by too great an eagerness to believe reports against her troops. The evidence was not of such a nature as they themselves would be willing to be condemned on. For the present, however, he would merely enter his protest against the views of the noble Lord, believing that when the time came he should be able to show that the Report, though it might have some foundation, was not to be accepted as absolutely to be relied on. He deprecated the raising of a question by the noble Lord as to the humanity of those who sat on that side of the House. It was not their custom to regard such matters from a religious standpoint. They were all at one in denouncing any cruelties that had been clearly established; and he did not think it a pleasing mode of commencing a discussion to cast aspersions upon one another or claim a monopoly of humanity.
§ LORD ELCHOexplained that he had not accused hon. Members opposite of inhumanity. He had no doubt they had as much humanity as hon. Gentlemen on his side of the House; but the inconsistency of their conduct required to be pointed out.
§ MR. ANDERSONsaid, he had been about to make similar remarks upon the subject; but what he intended to say on the subject of the Rhodope Report had been much better expressed by the hon. and learned Member for Durham (Mr. Herschell). He thought it would be extremely inconvenient to 963 discuss the matter then; but he had examined the whole question, and should at some other time be prepared to enter into a discussion upon it. What he had risen to say was upon a totally different question. He could not avoid feeling very strongly, from the reply given by the Home Secretary earlier in the evening, that the Government did not appreciate the real gravity of the industrial prospects of the country. The right hon. Gentleman quoted telegrams to prove that the country was not in a very bad state; but those telegrams were in no case from industrial centres. If he had gone to Glasgow, or to the coal districts, or to Sheffield, he would have found a very different state of things indeed. He (Mr. Anderson) had learned from Glasgow that there were 25,000 people there who were on the brink of starving, and who were only saved by the action of temporary relief. That state of affairs would become worse and worse; and the Government, before they knew where they were, might have to consider the wants, not of a small number of Rhodope refugees, but of the starving millions of this country. He desired that the Government would consider what the state of the country was at the present moment. He did not mean to charge the present Government with having brought it about—he did not believe that they had done so—but he did believe that their policy had immensely aggravated it. He believed that by the state of irritation in which they had kept the world, keeping them always on the brink of war, and then plunging into an unjust war by way of variety, they had entirely prostrated the commerce of the country, and had ruined its industrial prosperity. He did not believe that they would see any remedy or any improved state of things as long as the present Government were in Office.
§ MR. H. SAMUELSONsaid, that those who had taken action with reference to the horrors in Bulgaria would be equally ready to take action in the case of the alleged Rhodope horrors, if those horrors should be proved. But he did not exactly see what Government could do in the matter. They had already proved their incapacity to make the Turks, their sworn allies, punish convicted offenders, as in the case of Chefket Pasha, who, after Lord Derby had categorically demanded his punish- 964 ment, had received promotion and reward, and was at that time occupying a high official position in Thessaly. Under these circumstances, it was not likely that the Russians, even if guilty, would submit to their dictation.
§ MR. CHAMBERLAIN moved the adjournment of the debate on the question of the adjournment of the House, because he understood that that was the only way in which, in strict Order, he would be able to ask the House whether it would not be better to adjourn the discussion on the main Question until Her Majesty's Government had furnished them with the information which they had promised to lay upon the Table. Her Majesty's Government had themselves to blame if the House was unwilling to put so much confidence in them as to separate before the promised information was given. They had deliberately left the country in the dark; and he did not feel inclined to assent to the Motion of the right hon. Gentleman until full information on this large question had been laid before the House. He begged to move the adjournment of the debate.
§ Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Debate be now adjourned."—(Mr. Chamberlain.)
§ THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERI am afraid, from what has fallen from the hon. Member for Birmingham, that he and others are under a misapprehension in assuming that I have promised to give the House some further information on this question. I made no such promise. I merely said that I wish to state my views, and the views of Her Majesty's Government, with regard to the main principles which should be observed in the arrangement and the distribution between England and India of the burdens connected with the military operations. The propriety of those views will, of course, be open to argument. What Her Majesty's Government have all along proposed, and what Lord Cranbrook proposed in "another place," is that the House should now pass the Vote which is necessary to give legality to the application of the Indian Revenues towards the expenses of the military operations now going on in Afghanistan, and without which the application of a single rupee of such funds to that purpose would be illegal. I have 965 already stated that this Vote is not intended in any way to prejudge the question with regard to the ultimate apportionment of the cost and burden of the war between the two countries; and I stated last night, and I do so again now, that we regard this as a case with exceptional features, such as may render it desirable, when we know to what extent the matter has grown, to come forward and make some proposal that this country should give assistance to the Indian Exchequer in the matter. On the other hand, Her Majesty's Government cannot accept the theory that in a case of this sort the Revenues of this country are to be placed—so to speak—at the disposal of the Administration of India, because we believe that such a course would lead to extravagance. With regard to the present position of the discussion, I understood that a common understanding had been arrived at last night that the debate on the main Question should be finished to-night, and that the House should then adjourn until the 13th of February, and I should regret if the House were to desire to go back from that understanding. To prolong the present discussion, however, would merely have the effect of shortening and, perhaps, crippling the debate upon the main Question. With regard to the question raised by the noble Lord (Lord Elcho) relating to the Rhodope Report, I earnestly press upon the House the fact that it is one which is connected with an important and delicate subject, which can be more conveniently discussed, if at all, at another opportunity.
THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTONsaid, that if he shared the belief that appeared to be entertained below the Gangway, that Her Majesty's Government was about to give the House any additional information on this subject, he should be much disposed to agree to the course proposed by the hon. Member for Birmingham. He confessed, however, that he was rather sceptical as to the amount of information they were likely to receive from Government. He entirely agreed with the hon. Member for Burnley (Mr. Rylands), that if what had been said were correct—that Her Majesty's Government intended that any portion of the expenses of this war were to be borne by the British taxpayer—they should present an estimate 966 to Parliament, and ask the sanction of the House to the expenditure. But that could not now be done before the adjournment. The House was now sufficiently aware that it was not the intention of Her Majesty's Government to lay such an Estimate upon the Table before the adjournment, neither did they intend to ask for a Vote of Credit on account of the war. In adopting the course they had done, Her Majesty's Government had assumed a great responsibility; and, in his opinion, they should not have deferred to a future occasion the question whether the whole cost of the war was to be borne eventually by India, or whether the burden was to be shared in this country. The expediency of the course which Her Majesty's Government had taken was one which the House would have to consider hereafter. At present they could not hope to receive from the Government any further information which might alter their views on the subject. In these circumstances, he thought that the hon. Member for Birmingham would gain nothing by persisting in his Motion for the adjournment of the debate. He must confess that he could not appreciate the object of the noble Lord (Lord Elcho) in raising the question of the Rhodope Commission. No doubt it was quite open to the noble Lord to take any action in the matter he thought fit. He thought the noble Lord's intention was to put some questions to the Government in reference to the course they took on Friday and yesterday; but that did not seem to be his object, which was rather to shake the Report in the face of hon. Members on this side, and to demand why they did not take the same course as they had taken in the case of the Bulgarian atrocities. The warm interest which had been felt by hon. Members on that side of the House in the Bulgarian atrocities was due to the fact that they felt that those atrocities, committed by the Turkish authorities, ought to have exercised a strong influence upon the policy of this country; but he did not see how that policy was to be affected by the Report in question. If the noble Lord believed that, in consequence of the Report to which he had referred, war ought to be declared against Russia, or any other course adopted, he should bring the matter before the House by a distinct 967 Motion. As it was, he must protest against the noble Lord introducing this subject without notice and without warning, and probably in the absence of many hon. Members who might have something to say in reference to it, and against his taunting them with having refrained from taking any action in the matter, when it was evident that Her Majesty's Government themselves did not intend to take any action in reference to it.
§ MR. CHAMBERLAINsaid, that after the observations of the noble Marquess the Leader of the Opposition, and especially after the remark of the Chancellor of the Exchequer that he intended to state his views without giving the House any information on the question, he begged to withdraw his Amendment for the adjournment of the debate.
§ Motion, by leave, withdrawn.
§
Original Question put.
Resolved, That this House will, at the rising of the House this day, adjourn till Thursday the 13th day of February next.