§ MR. BRODRICKasked the First Lord of the Treasury, Whether his attention has been called, to the following statements in Despatches of the late General Gordon:—
April 26th. "Issued hank notes to amount of £2,500, redeemable in six months;July 30th. "Not one pound of the money you sent me got here. We want £200,000 sent to Kassala. The expenses of the garrisons must he met. Khartoum costs £500 per diem. … We have issued paper notes to amount of £26,000 and borrowed £50,000 from merchants, which you will have to meet. I have sent, in addition, £8,000 paper notes for Sennaar. … You are running up a good bill here;August 23rd. "The expenses and pay of the soldiers in the Soudan amount to £1,500 a day. You have now become responsible to these troops for the sum of £300,000;November 4th. "We are building two new steamers. The soldiers are only half a month's pay in arrear. We issued paper money, and also all the cloth in the magazines;716 whether the fact that General Gordon's notes passed as legal tender in Khartoum was corroborated by the members of his force examined by Lord Wolseley; and, what steps Her Majesty's Government propose to take to secure that the honour of General Gordon and the Country shall not suffer by the repudiation of the notes issued and the loans effected by him?
MR. GLADSTONEWhat appears is that these extracts are correct; but they form part of communications from General Gordon to the Egyptian Government, and they appear to imply that he was acting on behalf of the Egyptian Government in any measures of this kind that he took. However, I only make that remark as probable. We have had no communication on the subject, and we are not aware that the Egyptian Government has had any; but, no doubt, if there are any persons in possession of promises of this character from General Gordon, they will find means of causing them to arrive at some destination or other, with a view to obtaining what they are entitled to.