§ MR. SWIFT MACNEILL (Donegal, S.)To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he has received a communication from Khartoum stating that a force under Major Lempriere operating from Dilling, South Kordofan, made a demonstration against the tribes in the Tilul Basran district, and that the hill was stormed on 3rd November and the chiefs of the village captured, the Government casualties being three killed and twenty-four wounded, and the enemy's loss sixty; by whose authority was this punitive expedition undertaken; was the Foreign Office aware of its having been undertaken, and were these hostile proceedings commenced with the direct sanction of the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, and, if so, will he be able to communicate the information on which he authorised the expedition; whether the loss of the enemy was the loss of sixty lives; how many were killed and how many wounded, and what became of the wounded or what treatment was accorded to them; and whether he will be able to give particulars of this expedition and the reasons for it, and to state whether it was accompanied with the burning of villages and the destruction of crops; and whether any further hostilities in the Soudan are contemplated by the Government.
(Answered by Sir Edward Grey.) I have received no official information with regard to these operations except that no casualties have occurred among the British officers engaged. It is, of course, within the competence of the 1202 Government of the Soudan to take, on their own initiative, any measures that may be necessary for protection and the maintenance of order.