§ MR. DILLON (Mayo, E.)I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether his attention has been drawn to the fact that Ahmednagar, the place to which 500 Boer prisoners have recently been sent, is unhealthy and in every respect unsuitable as a place of imprisonment for men coming from such a climate as that of South Africa; and whether he will consider the desirability of transferring these prisoners to some more suitable place, and whether he will consider the desirability of sending Boer prisoners in the future to Ireland.
§ MR. HAVILAND-BURKE (King's Co., Tullamore)I beg also to ask the Secretary of State for War whether he is aware of the arrival of 500 Boer prisoners of war at Bombay, and their despatch to Ahmednagar; and, seeing that the Ahmednagar district was last year so famine stricken that one in every four of the population was on Government relief, and was also subject to a water famine, and that these conditions still to some extent prevail in the district, which is liable to cholera, plague, and 36 other Oriental diseases, whether he will consider the advisability of interning these prisoners of war in a more suitable district.
§ MR. BRODRICKAhmednagar has been selected by the Indian authorities as a healthy place, at which British troops have been stationed without ill effects for a long period of years. All arrangements have been made for a proper water supply and for the health of the prisoners.
§ MR. SCHWANN (Manchester, N.)Is it not the fact that there was a famine in this district last year, and does not famine usually leave disease behind it?