§ COLONEL NOLAN (Galway, N.)I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for India if his attention has been drawn to the statement in Thursday's Times, that all villages in Manipur which offer resistance are to be burned; if the 787 Secretary of State for India will enjoin on Commanders of Columns that no village shall be burned for offering resistance unaccompanied by cruelty to wounded or to prisoners, or by treachery on the part of that particular village; and if it is the custom, in waging war in the Frontier States of India, to depart from the usual customs of civilised war without the personal sanction of the Empress of India?
SIR J. GORSTThe Secretary of State has not received any official information as to the statement in the Times that all villages in Manipur which offer resistance are to be burned, or in regard to the operations of the troops at Manipur. He has the fullest confidence that the Government of India will in any Proclamation they may issue act with due regard to those principles of justice and mercy which have always been observed in our Indian frontier wars.
§ COLONEL NOLANMay I ask the right hon. Gentleman to be a little more explicit. Is he prepared to deny that the statement gravely and officially given in the Times is founded on fact; and, if so, is he going to leave it to chance whether villages may be burned down or not, the people probably being engaged only in defending their houses? Will the Government give orders that villages are not to be burned unless there is an absolute necessity for so extreme a course under the rules of civilised warfare?
SIR J. GORSTThe Secretary of State will not assume that the Government of India will act with impropriety, and, therefore, there is no necessity to direct them to act properly. He will rather assume that they will act properly, and will take no steps unless there is direct evidence that they have not done so.
§ COLONEL NOLANWill the Under Secretary explain whether a British Column will be allowed to act differently in this expedition from the way in which a German Column would act against France in a European war? Is he not of opinion that that would be improper?
§ MR. E. ROBERTSON (Dundee)Is it the fact that the troops put to death women and children?
SIR J. GORSTI have seen such a statement in the newspapers, but there is no official information of the kind.