§ MR. DILLONI beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether, on 11th May last, the servant of Mr. Evans, an English traveller, was seized by the Turks in Candia, cast into a filthy prison, and kept there for 43 hours; whether Sir Herbert Chermside, when first appealed to, refused to procure the release of Mr. Evans' servant; and whether Sir Herbert Chermside stated he was there to co-operate with the Turkish authorities?
MR. CURZONFrom the reports received of this incident it appears that the man arrested was not Mr. Evans' servant, but a muleteer, whom Mr. Evans had induced, contrary to the regulations, and notwithstanding his reluctance, to accompany him into Candia without a permit. The man was detained by the Governor at the police office for his own safety, and not in prison, and was eventually handed over to Sir H. Chermside, and by him sent back beyond the out-posts, as he was found to have been an employee of the Sitia Government at the time of the massacre of Mussulmans there in 1897. Sir H. Chërmside did not, so far as we are aware, make the statement mentioned in the Question. He said that the Turkish Governor was not under his orders, and that his province was to ensure the co-operation of the local government in preventing disorder.