§ MR. BRYCE (Aberdeen, S.)I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs when the two Reports from Captain Lugard to the British East Africa Company, regarding Uganda, which have been promised to the House, will be presented; and whether Her Majesty's Government have any information, subsequent to the date of Captain Lugard's Reports, bearing on the troubles reported to have existed in Uganda, which they can communicate to the House? And I should also like to ask him whether, as I hope he is, he is in a position to contradict a statement which has appeared in the papers this morning, reporting a sanguinary conflict between Protestants and Catholics, in which the Protestants are reported to have used rifles supplied to them by the agent of the Company?
MR. J. W. LOWTHERI have not seen the report to which the right hon. Gentleman refers. I presume it comes from the same source as former reports 1306 of the same character, a source which I described last week in reply to a question addressed to me by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Derby (Sir W. Harcourt). We have had no information through the English sphere of influence from Uganda since the time of the outbreak of the troubles in Uganda, which, I believe, occurred about the end of January. The last reliable information from Uganda is of the 8th January, on which date Mr. Gibson left the place. He has now arrived at the coast with a small number of Egyptian refugees and followers. A week before Mr. Gibson's departure from Uganda Captain Lugard had returned there. He had fallen in with Selim Bey and one thousand of the troops formerly under Emin Pasha. The troubles at Uganda seem to have occurred at the end of January, and with regard to them we have at present no reports. The reports referred to in the first paragraph of the question together with other papers will, it is hoped, be laid on the Table next week.