§ 8 Mr. WALTER GUINNESSasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (1) whether he has any official information showing that after the occupation of Prisrend the Servian troops set houses on fire and shot men, women, and children as they ran out, and that the massacre is estimated by various refugees to have amounted to between 500 and 900; 1157 (2) whether he has any official information showing that when the Servian troops occupied Lyuma they tied women and children together, saturated them with petroleum and set them on fire besides stripping many men and stabbing them to death with bayonets, and that the total number who thus perished is estimated as between 500 and 600; (3) whether he has received any report from the Consul-General at Salonica as to the statement that the Greeks tied together seventy-five Turkish prisoners of war and drowned them in the River Vardar; (4) whether he has any official information showing that the Greeks massacred many Albanians at Prishtina and executed many of the most prominent Albanians and Kutzo Vlach inhabitants of Karaferia after so-called trial by court-martial; (5) whether his attention has been drawn to the report of the Comité de Publication des Atrocités des Coalisés Balkaniques, which gives particulars of a massacre at Serres in which, at the lowest estimate, 1,700 Turks perished; and whether he has received any conformation of it; and (6) whether his attention has been drawn to the Report of the Comité de Publication des Atrocités des Coalisés Balkaniques, which states that, during the first forty-eight hours of the occupation of Strumitza by the Bulgarian troops, thirty-four Moslems were massacred, including two old men and five children; that after the departure of Colonel Mitoff, the Bulgarian Lieutenant Volcheff, the Servian Commandant, Ivan Gribitz, the Comitadji Chief Tshacof, and four others, were constituted as a tribunal, and condemned and executed 591 persons during twenty-three days, in most cases by bayonet stabs or after some horrible mutilation; whether he has any Consular Reports confirming these statements; and whether he has any information as to the punishment of those responsible for such atrocities?
§ Sir E. GREYAs regards the first four questions concerning events alleged to have occurred at Prisrend, Lyuma, on the Vardar, and at Prishtina and Karaferia, I have received no information from any official source bearing out the statements made. As regards the last two, relating to outrages alleged to have been perpetrated at Serres and Strumnitza, the report of the committee referred to has not come under my notice. I have, however, received Consular Reports containing statements substantially the same, though 1158 naturally not based on personal knowledge. The hon. Gentleman is already aware, from replies returned to him on the 16th, 21st, and 28th, of the action which I took on these reports. I shall take similar steps in the case of any further reports of the same kind which may reach me, when there seems to be foundation for them, but in this connection I would recall attention to the remarks I made in replying to the hon. Gentleman on the 28th ultimo.
§ Mr. W. GUINNESSIn the case of those first four questions as to which the right hon. Gentleman has got no official report, has his attention been called to the statements of the Roman Catholic Bishop of Prishtina at Vienna and other refugees, and can he inquire into the matter?
§ Sir E. GREYIt is impossible for us, while the war is going on, to undertake in the districts which are at present the theatre of warlike operations, over which we have no control, the duty of investigating charges made from any quarter.
§ Mr. W. GUINNESSCan the right hon. Gentleman not reassure our Moslem fellow-subjects by at least expressing the horror that he feels at these well authenticated cases which have reached him, and expressing some friendly hope that the allied Governments would take steps to prevent a repetition of them?
§ Sir E. GREYOf course statements of that kind, from whatever quarter they came, must be most painful and distressing reading. So far as I am concerned I must repeat that the hon. Member never seems to attach the weight which ought to be attached to the action which we have taken. Whenever reports have reached me from the Consul, even though not based on personal knowledge or first-hand information, and for which there appears to be foundation, I have brought it to the notice of the Governments concerned, either the Bulgarian, Servian, or Greek Governments, whichever it might be, and I have expressed the expectation that they would take steps to put a stop to anything of this kind, or to prevent it from happening. The replies that have been received both from the Bulgarian and Servian Governments state that any outrages of this kind will be punished, and that the outrages which did occur, so far as their information went, had been committed by irregular bands and not by troops.
§ Mr. WHITEHOUSEIs it within the knowledge of the right hon. Gentleman that the Bulgarian and Servian Governments, through the troops, are disarming the whole of the population in the occupied territory as rapidly as possible, and that they are doing their best to restore order in the country?
§ Mr. W. GUINNESSMay I also ask whether it is not stated on good authority that, after disarming the population, they proceed to massacre them? [HON. MEMBERS: "No," "Hear, hear."]