tion of the grain tax from my reply to a Question asked by him on April 3.

INDIA-THE KIRWEE PRIZE MONEY.

QUESTION.

GENERAL SHUTE asked the Under Secretary of State for India, When the complete accounts of the whole proceeds of all the moveable property of ex-chiefs of Kirwee, including the funds retained by the Indian Government, will be presented to the House, in accordance with the Parliamentary Orders of 1873 and 1874; and, if he will be good enough to state the cause of the delay? MR. E. STANHOPE: The Return is complete. All that passed into the hands of Government, as indicated in the Orders of the Houses of Parliament, was contained in the Return of 1876. I presume, however, that the Question of my hon. and gallant Friend refers specially to certain promissory notes. He will find a list of those notes at page 15 of a Return as to Kirwee prize-money, presented to this House in 1870. The matter was fully discussed in the House of Lords in 1877, and my noble Friend, Lord Salisbury, explained that a decision had been come to on the subject in 1869, after the most lengthened and careful consideration of successive Governments.

ARMY DISCIPLINE AND REGULATION
BILL-LEGISLATION AS TO BOOTY
OF WAR.-QUESTION.

GENERAL SHUTE asked the Secretary of State for War, Whether he will consider the justice and advisability of adding a Clause to the Army Discipline and Regulation Bill, giving to the Army the same right of appeal as regards "booty of war," as the Navy enjoys in cases of "prize of war," not in order to affect the right of the Crown to grant prize, but in case of dispute to regulate its distribution?

COLONEL STANLEY, in reply, said, that Her Majesty's Government, by the advice of the Privy Council, could order all questions with reference to "booty of war" to be submitted to the Court of Admiralty, under the Act of 3 & 4 Vict. It did not seem expedient to make this an imperative obligation; and, in any case, the place for it would not be in the Army Discipline and Regulation Bill, but in a measure to amend the law of prizes.

POST OFFICE-EASTERN MAIL CON-
TRACT.-QUESTION.

SIR GEORGE CAMPBELL asked the Postmaster General, with reference to the new contract for the Eastern Mails, If he will be so good as to explain how the cost is to be distributed between the Mother Country, India, and the Colonies, and especially how the total amount contracted for is to be divided between the Indian line to Bombay and that to Galle and China; and, whether the Australian Colonies are to pay their fair share of the latter with reference to work done?

LORD JOHN MANNERS, in reply, said, that calculations were now being made for the purpose of ascertaining what proportion of the subsidy would be paid by India and what by Ceylon and Hong Kong. A share of the cost which represented the carriage of the Australian mails would be borne by the Mother Country, in accordance with the arrangements under the postal regulations agreed to with the Government of Australia.

SIR GEORGE CAMPBELL asked for

an explanation of the principles on which the cost would be distributed?

LORD JOHN MANNERS thought it would not be for the convenience of the House if, in answer to a Question, a Minister was expected to enter into the principles of a scheme which had not yet been sanctioned by the House.

CHURCH OF SCOTLAND-RETURN OF

COMMUNICANTS.-QUESTION.

MR. MACDONALD asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, If his attention has been directed to an article in the Scotsman," dated 27th of May, which throws serious doubts on the truthfulness of a Return recently presented to this House, entitled "Communicants of the Church of Scotland;" and, whether, considering the gravity of the charge contained in the article, the Government will appoint a Royal Commission to inquire into the truth or falsity of the figures returned as correct ; and, at the same time, confer on the Commission power to purge the roll of any congregation, if it think it necessary, so as to arrive at a true statement of the real number of bonâ fide members?

THE LORD ADVOCATE (Mr. WATSON): We have no reason whatever to

THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHE- Whether he can state when he will QUER: With respect to the first Ques- be prepared to lay before the House tion, I am sorry to say that no further Accounts or Estimates of the Revenue portion of the sum of £66,000, due from and Expenditure of Cyprus under British the Porte to the British and French Go- Administration? vernments in respect of the loan, has been received by Her Majesty's Government either from the Porte or from the Khedive. With regard to the latter Questions of the right hon. Member, I am not in a position to answer them at present. They are still under discussion.

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.

66

AFRICA-THE ZULU WARALLEGED 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 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 kill 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 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.

whether Native women and children in 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 received assures 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