HC Deb 19 February 1880 vol 250 cc908-10
MR. GRANT DUFF

asked Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, Whether, a few days before the assembling of the Constantinople Conference in December 1876, a Report was made to the Government of India by Lieutenant Colonel Macgregor, Assistant Quartermaster General, in which, amongst other things, a plan was sketched for the despatch of 30,000 British troops to Armenia viâ Trebizond, and of 60,000 Indian troops to the same Country viâ, Bagdad; whether it was printed by public authority and at the public expense; whether it was sent to various newspapers by the orders of anyone acting under the Government of India, or, if not, by whose orders; whether there would be any objection to lay the Report itself upon the Table, the said Report having been already printed in the "Statesman" newspaper, and to add the Appendices, which, have not yet been printed; whether any document as hostile to this Country as this Report is to Russia has been found at Cabul or elsewhere; and, if so, whether, there would be any objection to lay it also before the House; and, whether, with a view to make more generally intelligible the policy of Her Majesty's Government in Western Asia, it is now in his power to explain the large military preparations which were made in the Punjaub about the time Colonel Macgregor's Report was signed?

THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER

Sir, I never saw or heard of the document to which the hon. Gentleman refers until his Question was put on the Paper. I believe my hon. Friend the Under Secretary of State for India has some information which he can give to the House on the subject.

MR. E. STANHOPE

Colonel Macgregor, on returning to India in 1876, went through Western Beloochistan with the knowledge of the Secretary of State and of his Council in London. The object was the extension of our geographical knowledge in that country and in Persia, and his instructions were to "proceed to India by way of the Karun River and Beloochistan," in company with Captain Lockwood. The route selected by Colonel Macgregor wasviâConstantinople and Armenia; and on the 10th of November, 1876, in a letter to the India Office, dated from Erzeroum, he said— I am writing a note on what I saw, which I will send you in case it might he any use to the Government at home. This note was subsequently received, and was ordered to be confidentially printed at the India Office. It never had any official character whatever, and has not been recorded in any department of the India Office. It appears to be the same as that printed inThe Statesmanof January 17, 1880, but how the editor of that newspaper obtained a copy of it we do not know. The note is of a confidential character, and it is clearly not one to be presented to Parliament. It is of precisely the same class as the Papers stored in the Intelligence Department of all Armies, which are obviously treated as confidential. Colonel Macgregor is now Chief of the Staff to Sir Frederick Roberts at Cabul. I am not aware that there were any large military preparations in the Punjaub in 1876. Certain precautions were taken in consequence of the attitude of the Ameer Shere Ali and of some of the Border Tribes.

MR. GRANT DUFF

The Chancellor of the Exchequer has not answered the most important part of my Question—Whether any document as hostile to this Country as this Report is to Russia has been found at Cabul or elsewhere; and, if so, whether there would be any objection to lay it before the House?

THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER

The House must see that it is obviously impossible for me to enter into a discussion upon such a subject.