HC Deb 15 March 1920 vol 126 cc1810-1
Lord ROBERT CECIL (by Private Notice)

asked the Prime Minister whether his attention has been called to the answers given last Thursday by the Minister representing the Foreign Office to the effect that he did not accept it as a fact that Mustapha Kemal was the agent of the Committee of Union and Progress or that that Committee organised tie recent massacres in Cilica, and that he could not say whether Mustapha Kemal was in close and constant communication with the Turkish Ministry of War; whether he is aware that on the same day the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs stated that the trouble in Cilicia was part of a definite Nationalist programme directed in the interest of the Young Turk Party, designed with the object of seizing any occasion for massacring the Armenians, and that there has been a constant interchange of communications between the Capital and the Nationalist Forces in Asia Minor, and that Mustapha Kemal, as official Governor of Erzerum, was a link between Constantinople and Asia, and whether he will arrange that in future full information on foreign affairs shall so far as is consistent with public interests be given to the House?

The PRIME MINISTER

I have every desire that the House should be kept fully informed on foreign affairs, but I must remind my Noble Friend of the circumstances in which these questions were put. They were put to a Minister who is not responsible for the Department, who was simply acting in the absence of another Minister who was ill. Therefore he was not in direct touch with the Department. The second point is this. The questions were supplementary questions, without any notice, which required a good deal of inquiry, and all my right hon. Friend said was that he was not aware. He had no time to investigate the matter, and he was very anxious that there should be no admission.

Sir C. KINLOCH-COOKE

Is it in order for an hon. Member to allude specifically to a question and answer given by a Minister on another question on another day on the same subject?

Mr. SPEAKER

I see no objection to it.

Sir H. GREENWOOD

Is it not the custom in this House when an hon. Member rises to put a question to reflect either upon the courtesy, the willingness or the capacity, or accuracy of the Minister who has made the answer that the Minister so reflected upon should have notice of the question?

Lord R. CECIL

I did not desire to reflect in any way on my hon. Friend. I was merely pointing out that by the arrangement for which the Prime Minister was responsible information on foreign affairs was not in fact being given to the House as they have a right to expect. If my right hon. Friend thought I intended to reflect on my hon. Friend no doubt he would have communicated the question to him.