§ MR. DILLONI beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether his attention has been directed to a letter of a Lieutenant on board H.M.S. Anson, in which it is stated that there are thousands of poor men, women, and children actually starving and homeless, huddled together in caves, with barely rags to cover them: that one poor girl of 19, with a newly-born baby, was lying in a cave in the bitter cold with scarcely any covering; and that the family had caught and killed a dog, and were actually eating it; and whether he will direct the Admirals to make inquiry as to the condition of the people in the interior of Crete, and make some provision for their relief?
MR. CURZONI have seen the letter in question, and, as Her Majesty's ship Anson recently visited a spot named Paleocastron, on the shore near Candia, where as many as 700 Christian 1382 Cretans were at one time assembled in the hope of emigrating to Greece, I have little doubt that the reference is to that locality, and not to the interior of the island. Relief was distributed to these poor people for some days by the British and Russian authorities; and on February 24th we heard that all but 50 had returned to their villages. In the villages in one district in this neighbourhood there has been considerable distress, and arrangements have been under discussion for opening a market for free communication between the Coast and the interior. Her Majesty's Government have already subscribed £700 towards the relief of distress; and this money is distributed irrespective of locality or creed. We constantly receive such information as is forthcoming about the state of the interior, but it is difficult for the Admirals to extend their operations beyond the range of international occupation and the immediate neighbourhood.