DUM-DUM BULLETS. (Hansard, 16 September 1914)

§ Mr. SWIFT MacNEILL
I beg to ask the Prime Minister whether, having 945 regard to the fact that Great Britain all through the Boer War, although then, for technical reasons, not a signatory to the Declaration of The Hague Conference of 1809 in favour of abstention from the use of dum-dum or expanding bullets, vigorously enforced such abstention by British troops, and in 1907 assented to The Hague Declaration, the Government will consider the advisability of issuing an authoritative statement to the neutral Powers embodying the repudiation by the Under-Secretary of State for War yesterday of the calumny emanating from Germany and extensively circulated that dum-dum bullets are in use, or have been used, by British troops in the present War?

§ Mr. ACLAND
This has already been done. On the 5th of September His Majesty's representatives in neutral countries were directed to publish statements to the effect referred to on the authority of His Majesty's Government.

§ Sir W. BYLES
I ask leave of the House to make a very brief personal explanation. Yesterday I put a question to the representative of the War Office about the use of dum-dum bullets by our troops. I find that question, or at any rate my motive in putting it, has been misunderstood in more quarters than one. I only desire to say that in the form in which I handed my question in at the Table it was made perfectly clear that my object was only to destroy the calumnious statements on this matter which have been circulated in the United States.