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Marines serve as compared with those of the Army is, on the whole, unfavourable to the Marines. I will consider with my Colleagues whether any improvement can be made in the rate of pension.

ARMY-COMPULSORY RETIREMENT

THE ROYAL WARRANT OF MAY, 1878.

QUESTION.

rates of postage upon letters from officers, soldiers, and seamen serving in South Africa, which reach this country unpaid. If any letters are accidentally charged with double postage, owing to its not being known that they are sent by soldiers, the surcharge is always remitted on application.

GENERAL SHUTE: Will that apply to the letters of officers?

LORD JOHN MANNERS: Yes; of course.

ALLEGED CRUELTY OF THE BRITISH

TROOPS.-QUESTION.

MR. STACPOOLE asked the Secretary of State for War, If it is true that in several cases where, since the promulgation of the Royal Warrant of May SOUTH AFRICA THE ZULU WAR— 1878, vacancies by death or compulsory retirement at seventy years of age have occurred in the establishment of general officers, majors have not received the promotion to which they are entitled under paragraph 21 f of the Warrant; whether there is any provision in the Warrant rendering it necessary, in order to give the senior major in the Army the right to the brevet rank of lieutenant colonel under the said paragraph, that such vacancy on the establishment of general officers should be filled up; and, if no such provision exists, whether the refusal to senior majors of promotion on the occurrence of such vacancies in the establishment of general officers is not a violation of paragraph 21 f of the Royal

Warrant?

COLONEL STANLEY: I do not think there has been any violation of the Royal Warrant. If any name or any personal references be given to me, I shall be able to trace these cases, and possibly be enabled to answer the Question generally. However, I may say this much -that the death or retirement of an officer holding a rank in which there are supernumeraries does not ever create a

vacancy.

POST OFFICE SOLDIERS LETTERS FROM SOUTH AFRICA.-QUESTION. MR. OLIVER WALKER asked the Postmaster General, If it is true that double postage is charged upon unpaid letters arriving from soldiers serving in South Africa; and, if this is the case, whether he will consider the propriety of remitting the double postage, seeing the difficulty of obtaining stamps at the seat of war?

LORD JOHN MANNERS: Since April last it has been the practice to charge only the ordinary prepaid Mr. W. H. Smith

MR. O'DONNELL asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies, Whether his attention has been directed to the South African Correspondence of the "Daily Chronicle" of the 3rd instant, in which it is stated that after the Battle of Kambula the defeated Zulus, exhausted with fatigue, fell in hundreds upon the ground, begging for mercy from their pursuers "but were shot, stabbed, or sabred where they lay," and that even though some of them had smeared themselves with blood in order to appear to be wounded and appealed for quarter, they were mercilessly put to death; whether

he has seen an extract from the letter of

a soldier engaged in the same fight at Kambula, published in the "Tiverton Gazette" of May the 27th, and copied in the "Echo " of the 3rd instant, in which it is avowed that

"On March the 30th, the day after the battle, about eight miles from camp, we found about five hundred wounded, most of them mortally, them; but they got no chance after what they and begging us for mercy's sake not to kil! had done to our comrades at Isandula;"

and, whether operations in South Africa are being conducted by the British troops according to the usages of civilisation?

SIR MICHAEL HICKS - BEACH: Sir, the hon. Member evidently seems to expect that I should make myself acquainted with everything that appears in the newspapers on this subject. I make no complaint of that view; but I think we may take it for granted that he complies with that rule himself. Therefore, he must have seen in Wednesday's Times a letter from the War Office, in which it was stated, on behalf of my right hon. and gallant Friend the Secretary of State for War, that the General

Officer commanding Her Majesty's Forces | whether Native women and children in

in Natal has been called on to inquire into these allegations, and report whether there is any truth in them. If the hon. Member saw that letter, I cannot tell what object he has in asking this Question. I should not have thought that any Member of this House would have been willing, without necessity, to give pain to men who are serving Her Majesty on the other side of the world by giving to unsupported statements of this kind the stamp of importance, if not of credibility, that they derive from being made the subject of a Question in Parliament; much less that anyone would have based upon such a foundation as this an insinuation that his own countrymen do not conduct war according to the usages of civilization.

South Africa are captured and indentured out into practical slavery-we receive the answer that no women or children in South Africa are treated in this way, or at all approaching it, except those who are deserted. I beg to ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer to inform the House, in regard to the word "deserted," whether it is not an evasion perpetrated on the innocence of the right hon. Baronet, most unworthy of the traditions of the Public Service of the country? The alleged desertion-and I, and other Members on this side of the House, can prove it-is the desertion occasioned by driving off the male members of the tribe by bullet and bayonet. When the male members of the tribe are captured they are condemned to hard MR. O'DONNELL: Mr. Speaker, in labour and penal servitude, and the order to put myself quite in Order in Native women and children are then the remarks I have to make, I shall con- said to be deserted. It is for this House clude with a Motion. The right hon. to judge whether that is a correct repreGentleman asks why-assuming that I sentation of the state of affairs. Not had seen the reply of the War Office only have these poor women and children to some representations made to them not been deserted by their natural supby the Aborigines Protection Society-porters, but they have been deprived of I put the Question to him? Although the interrogatories of the right hon. Baronet were not put in the most courteous form, or with the most careful regard for the independent rights of Members of this House, I will beg to answer them; and I hope he will consider himself perfectly satisfied by the time I have sat down. The reply to the Aborigines Protection Society seemed to me to be excessively inadequate-considering the circumstances of the case, considering the wrong committed, and the undoubted perpetration of atrocities in South Africa. I, therefore, asked this Question; and I hoped to receive an answer from the Colonial Secretary very different from the evasive and unsatisfactory answers he is in the habit of giving. ["Oh, oh!"] I do not make this a charge against the right hon. Baronet. I am disposed only to regard him in those matters relating to his Office as the channel of information in this House; but I regret to say that he is habitually the channel of most adulterated and misleading information. ["Oh, oh!"] Hon. Members have heard the manner in which I have been treated just now by the right hon. Gentleman. If a Member gets up and asks the right hon. Baronet a Question-for instance,

them by the violence of Her Majesty's Administrator in South Africa. Again, Sir, if an hon. Member asks the right hon. Baronet the Secretary of State for the Colonies if it is true that prisoners of war, the tribesmen of Native Chiefs in South Africa, have, contrary to all the usages of civilization, been condemned to hard labour and penal servitude, the right hon. Baronet stands up in his place, and again-acting, no doubt, upon information which he has receivedassures this House that no prisoners of war have been treated in any such manner. Sir, again, I am sorry to say, an evasion has been practised of the most culpable kind. These unfortunate tribesmen throughout South Africa are not, technically considered, prisoners of war; they have been tried for treasonfelony, and under treason statutes, and are considered rebels and insurgents. I leave it to this House to say whether these tribesmen-ignorant, devoted to their Chiefs-who have followed those Chiefs into war against Her Majesty's Government, are not properly prisoners of war; and whether it is not unworthy even to speak of them as rebels punishable according to the ordinary law of the land? I have this year, and in previous years, asked Question upon Ques

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tion of the right hon. Baronet the Secretary of State for the Colonies; and on every occasion, though I have never previously complained, I have had a right to complain of the uncourteous manner in which he replied. I repudiate with scorn and contempt any insinuation that I am not as careful of the honour of that Army-of which my countrymen form so distinguished a part-as any Member, I care not what his nationality may be, in this Empire. But I have duties to discharge to my conscience, to my Colleagues, to my constituents. Let the right hon. Baronet venture to disprove a single allegation that is made; but let him not presume to reply with unworthy taunts to a Member of this House who is acting in the discharge of his duty. I beg to move that this House do now adjourn.

MR. BIGGAR seconded the Motion.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."(Mr. O'Donnell.)

THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER: I must again, Sir, enter my protest against this repetition of a practice which I ventured yesterday, or the day before, to say must, if persisted in, prove utterly destructive to the possibility of conducting Business regularly; and with a view to the convenience of the House, I think it unnecessary to take any special notice of the extraordinary language which the hon. Gentleman has chosen to indulge in. It is language approaching-though I do not say that it goes beyond an approach-to a very serious breach of the usual language of Parliament. I am quite sure that I speak the sentiments of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Colonies, as well as my own and those of my Colleagues, in saying that we think very little of language such as that employed by the hon. Gentleman. I think that when the hon. Member talks of evasion, he is using language which my right hon. Friend may very well think it beneath him to take any notice of. I rise mainly for the purpose of again entering my protest against the introduction and the adoption by the House of a system of moving the adjournment of the House, in order to introduce matters for discussion that are not at all relevant to the Business

before the House.

Mr. O'Donnell

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MR. SULLIVAN: This heat is very much to be regretted; and I am astonished at the Chancellor of the Exchequer apparently forgetting who introduced it. Although loyalty to a Colleague is praiseworthy, there is a higher duty due from him. He is the Leader of this House, and ought to be the protector of the privileges of an independent Member; and if he found a Colleague, under momentary irritation, converting a reply to a Question into a harangue and an impeachment of a Member, then I say that the Leader of the House should have risen above the feelings of the Minister towards his Colleague. I must say I heard with astonishment-I will not say with astonishment, but with great pain-the tone and character of the reply of the Colonial Secretary. I correct myself in saying with astonishment, because, after all, we are all human. Still, official life does impose some restriction upon one's feelings; and, whatever the right hon. Baronet's irritation might have been, he was bound to consider that he was Her Majesty's public official, and that he filled a highly responsible position in this House, where gravity ought to characterize his language. Instead of replying in an official tone to a fair and legitimate Question, he introduced, not only matter of argument, but matter of invective; and what was his invective? It was an accusation that the hon. Member for Dungarvan had abused his position in this House. ["Hear, hear!"'] Is there one man amongst those who are ready to say "Hear, hear!" who will have the courage to put his name to a Motion on the Paper that the hon. Member has abused his position? Let us watch the Notice Paper to see. If he has abused it, he is amenable to the Rules of the House. I regret this

waste of time. Mark how, in the middle of June, when we ought to be proceeding with our Business, a Minister of the Crown, backed up by a loudlycheering majority, wastes three-quarters of an hour of our time by getting up to lead us into a heated debate, instead of giving a courteous and proper answer to a fair Question. I will not go into other instances of this kind; but I charge upon Members of the Government this waste of public time. Let us hope that we shall have no more of these impeachments. I, for one, also

MR. NEWDEGATE remarked, that it was the deliberate opinion of the Select Committee on Public Business, over which the late Sir James Graham presided in 1861, that the present fashion of putting Questions might be

complain of the language of the Colonial Secretary. He talked about our countrymen, and made imputations upon our countrymen in South Africa. He forgets, being a Colonial Secretary, that the paper which published the account was English. It was not an Irish news-made the vehicle for conveying imputapaper, but The Tiverton Gazette, and the extract was copied into the London Echo, and the soldier who wrote that letter was an English soldier, you may be sure. ["No, no!"] Oh! there are a few English soldiers out in South Africa; although, when you wanted a man to lead them, you went to Ireland and found Sir Garnet Wolseley. This English soldier wrote as follows:"We found the day after the battle 500 wounded, most of them mortally, and begging us for mercy's sake not to kill them."

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"Begging us for mercy's sake not to kill them; but they got no chance after what they

had done to our comrades at Isandlana."

["Divide, divide!"] Not so, Mr.
Speaker. I am going to be heard. If
anyone in this House sees a statement so
serious as that, affecting the honour of
your Army-[An hon. MEMBER: Prove
it.] An hon. Member asks me to
prove it. Take the statement out of an
irresponsible public paper, bring it to
the House, and then let the Minister
give it a contradiction. If it is a slander
-as I hope it may prove to be for the
sake of our common humanity-let it be
so branded; but the man who feels it
his duty to call attention to it must not
be received as my hon. Friend has been
received; he must not be taunted and
held up to scorn, and the Minister who
does so cheered by Gentlemen sitting
behind him. I do not wish to complain
too much; but I beg to remind hon.
Gentlemen opposite that we, too, have
our feelings who sit on this side of the
House and we cannot see without pro-
test an hon. Friend and Member treated-
as we believe the hon. Member for Dun-
garvan has been treated-in such an un-
handsome manner.
I repeat my regret
that this heated debate should have been
provoked from the Treasury Bench, and
I hope we shall be allowed to proceed
with our Business.

No

tions, the necessary reply to which would
entail the frequent interruption of the
Business of the House. It was in order
to avoid such exhibitions as the House
had now been made the scene of, that the
arrangement was come to that on going
into Supply on Friday any subject
might be raised which might be deemed
worth the attention of the House.
abler Committee had ever been ap-
pointed than the Committee which
framed that recommendation in order to
avoid such scenes as had now occurred.
of the House had chosen, on the autho-
For what had happened? A Member
rity of a newspaper-or, it might be,
such terms as conveyed the grossest im-
two newspapers-to frame a Question in
putation upon our Army. When, in
answer to that Question, the hon. Mem-
berwas informed by the Secretary of State
for the Colonies that if he had only
consulted a newspaper, much more likely
to attract public attention than those he
had quoted, he might have known that
inquiries were being instituted, and that
it was inpossible at present that his in-
quiries could be satisfactorily answered,
the hon. Member treated that reply as
an imputation-and he (Mr. Newdegate)
thought the imputation well deserved;
and then the hon. Member interrupted
the Business of the House in order to
make a vindication of his action, in
which he had totally failed.

MR. W. E. FORSTER: I hope that we shall be allowed very speedily to proceed to Business. I do not quite accept the rules for the conduct of our Business of my hon. Friend opposite (Mr. Newdegate). I think you, Sir, must be the judge whether a Question is in accordance with Order or not, and I must leave it to you to make that decision. Now, with regard to this Question, if it had stopped before the very last clause, I think the Government and the Colonial Secretary ought to have been glad that it was asked. These are two statements which are very distressing to anyone to read. The Government have done their duty in writing to be informed whether these and similar

children, or had explained it away in a manner which he considered evasive. But, Sir, I told the hon. Member, in my reply to that Question, that every information which I had received, or should receive, with reference to this practice of indenture-which I knew to be liable to abuse-had been, or should be, given

I had made further inquiry as to what had actually happened in the matter. The hon. Member went on to say that I denied altogether that any persons who had been taken prisoners in the rebellion, or war in the Transkei, had been treated as convicts, and sent to penal servitude. My reply to the hon. Member-I recollect the exact words-was that I was not aware that anything of the kind had occurred; but there, again, I said I would make inquiries, and such inquiries have already been made, and the result, as soon as I receive it, shall be communicated to the House.

SIR WILLIAM FRASER wished humbly to suggest that the Motion made by the hon. Member for Dungarvan should not be allowed to be withdrawn, but should be met with a negative, and it would be then for the hon. Member to say whether he would test the opinion of the House on his conduct this afternoon.

statements are true, thereby showing prima facie their disapproval; but I think it would have been rather a kindness to the Government, and rather a credit to the country, that the Colonial Secretary, or some other Member of the Government, should have been enabled by a Question to state officially that such a step had been taken. I think, how-to the House; and I told him also that ever, that the hon. Gentleman went too far in his closing sentence. He seems by that to prejudge the case, which we all trust may turn out to be quite different to what he represented it. But when we come to the rebuke of the Chancellor of the Exchequer to the hon. Gentleman for moving the adjournment of the House, I share the opinion of the Chancellor of the Exchequer that these Motions for adjournment are exceedingly inconvenient; but I confess that in this particular case the Colonial Secretary ought almost to have anticipated the Motion. The way in which he answered the Question may or may not have been a just one, but he gave a strong rebuke to the hon. Member for the mode in which he asked it; and I think it is not unnatural to expect, that if a Member of the Government strongly rebukes in his reply to a Question a Member of this House for the form in which he has asked it, it is not unreasonable to expect that that Gentleman should get up and reply. I do hope that now we shall be allowed to proceed to Business. SIR MICHAEL HICKS - BEACH: I will only detain the House while I say one or two sentences in my own justification. Nothing that the hon. Member for Dungarvan can say in this House will provoke me to warmth on my own account; but I did feel, and I do feel, very deeply, the imputation which he appeared to me to cast upon men who were absent, and whom it seemed to be my duty to defend. I think that, at all events, I was so far justified, even upon the hon. Member's own showing; for by his reference to the Aborigines Protection Society it is clear that he had seen the letter to which I alluded. But, Sir, in moving the adjournment of the House the hon. Member went on to charge me in language which I can well afford to pass by, I hope-with having answered former Questions in a way which he did not approve. He said that I had denied the existence of the practice of indenturing of women and

Mr. W. E. Forster

MR. PARNELL: Repeatedly, Questions have been put to Ministers without the effect of eliciting any information whatever. All kinds of excuse are made. At one time the absence of telegraphic communication; at another time the highest State reasons are urged to deprive the House of any information. Now, Sir, when this Vote for the expenses of the Zulu War was brought before the House, I ventured to anticipate that a policy of extermination would be adopted in South Africa. I said I presumed that, as the Zulus had given no quarter at Isandlana, so no quarter would be given by the British troops to the Zulus in South Africa; but I was at once contradicted by several hon. Members behind the front Opposition Bench, who said that the utmost pains would be taken to secure that the operations of the troops should be continued in accordance with the usages of civilization, and that the conduct of the Zulus at Isandlana should not be imitated. I entered my protest against the war as the first Vote for Supply for the war

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