HC Deb 03 March 1905 vol 142 cc319-20
MR. MOON (St. Pancras, N.)

To ask the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he can state whether the four instalments of tithe due to be paid in the months of August, September, October, and November in the thirty villages of the vilayet of Monastir have been punctually and fully paid; and whether it is proposed to introduce into other parts of Macedonia the system experimentally carried out in these thirty villages.

(Answered by Earl Percy.) We have no detailed information as to the payment of the four instalments mentioned, but at the collection of the first instalment not only was this single instalment paid without delay by every locality, but several districts even paid the amount for the whole year at once on their own initiative. The experiments made were intended to serve as a basis for the earliest possible extension of the reform on a larger scale.