HC Deb 30 June 1881 vol 262 cc1653-4
MR. W. HOLMS

asked the Secretary of State for War, Whether he is aware that no adequate provision was made for the accommodation of the 2nd West India Regiment, landed at Cape Coast in March last, three companies with their officers being quartered in tents on the seaboard, the other three companies in the Fantee town, where, in the words of an eye-witness— Every evening there rises from the countless cesspools and steaming earth a poisonous miasma, hanging in so dense a veil that you could almost cut it; this is the atmosphere which must be inhaled all night; whether he is aware that, although on active service, no rations were supplied to the officers of the regiment, who were left to forage for themselves as they best could; whether he is aware that, of the 29 officers of that regiment who landed at Cape Coast between the 11th and 31st March last, one (Lieutenant Harwood) died, eleven were invalided home, and the others, with one exception, suffered from fever before the 17th May; and, if he will inform the House whether any inquiry has been, or will be made, in order to ascertain who is to blame for the neglect of the proper sanitary precautions as regards the accommodation of the regiment referred to when landed at Cape Coast?

MR. CHILDERS

My hon. Friend cannot have been in the House when I fully answered almost identical Questions on the 9th and 13th instant, and I must refer him to those answers. The only additional point in his Question is, whether the officers received rations? I presume that they did, and large supplies of food were sent out; but I have received no Report on the subject.

MR. W. HOLMS

said, he had heard the answers given by the right hon. Gentleman to the two Questions referred to; but he ventured to think that he had not answered this part of the Question—whether he was aware that of the 29 officers of the regiment, who landed at Cape Coast between the 11th and 31st March, one (Lieutenant Harwood) died, 11 were invalided home, and the others, with one exception, suffered from fever before the 17th May? He should also like to know if it was not the case that no rations whatever were supplied to the officers?

MR. CHILDERS

replied, that he had already informed his hon. Friend that large supplies of food were sent out, but that he had no information as yet as to its distribution, and could not, therefore, answer the Question. He had not the points of his previous replies before him; but he remembered that he expressly stated that one officer had died, and that a large number were invalided. He thought he mentioned 10 or 12, and he also said that there was a great deal of sickness among the officers.