§ MR. LEVESON-GOWER (Stoke-upon-Trent)I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether the attention of Her Majesty's Government has been directed to the unsatisfactory account of the revenue and expenditure of the Island of Cyprus contained in the Report of Her Majesty's High Commissioner for 1888–9; whether they have observed that whilst the revenue of the year amounted to £149,362, and the local expenditure to no more than £109,963, the payments made by Her Majesty's Treasury to the Porte under the Convention of 1878 was £82,799, and the Parliamentary Grant given in aid of such payments was £55,000; and whether, in view of the general agricultural and commercial depression prevailing in Cyprus according to the Report, and of the continued non-fulfilment by the Porte of its engagement under the Convention of 1878 to introduce reforms into the administration of Armenia, Her Majesty's Government will consider the advisability of 238 devoting such tribute money to the relief of the inhabitants of Cyprus until the Porte shall have fulfilled its part of the Convention of 1878 by establishing some form of Government in Armenia under which the lives and property of Christians may be secure?
§ SIR J. FERGUSSONThe figures in the second paragraph of the question are correct; but the Tribute is not actually paid to the Porte, being applied to the service of the Turkish loan of 1855, which was guaranteed by Great Britain and France.