such circumstances, were equally terrible | after the Question was put to me. It and atrocious. Now, previously to this was also said that 1,000 girls had been declaration of the Grand Vizier, Sir sold in open market. The consequence Henry Elliot said on the 16th of June of this was that inquiries were made in that the Bulgarian insurrection appeared both Houses of Parliament, and, imto be unquestionably put down, although mediately after the Question was put by he regretted to say with cruelty, and, in the Duke of Argyll, Lord Derby telesome places, with brutality. He said- graphed to Sir Henry Elliot. After he had telegraphed, however, there "I am not disposed to accept the accounts which come from the sources to which it would appeared in The Daily News an adnot be difficult to trace the origin of the move- ditional article, which occupies seven ment, which are exaggerated to a degree which or eight printed pages in the book. must deprive them of the slightest credit: Thereupon Lord Derby wrote a desbut there is evidence that the employment of Circassians and Bashi-Bazouks has led to the patch, which, if the House will permit atrocities which were to be expected." me, I will read, because it contains the cream, the pith of the statements in The Daily News, as they were put before our Ambassador by Lord Derby asking for inquiry

"The Earl of Derby to Sir Henry Elliot. "Foreign Office, July 13, 1876. "Sir,-With reference to my despatch, No. 501, of the 28th ultimo, I enclose, for your Excellency's information, additional extracts from the "Daily News" of the 8th and 10th instant, reporting the occurrence of further atrocities in Bulgaria and elsewhere, and I have to inform your Excellency that this matter has been again under discussion in both Houses of Parliament. It is stated that in the district of been taken, whilst by others the number is fixed Philippopoli alone 25,000 innocent lives have at about 12,000. It is reported that upwards of sixty villages have been pillaged and burnt, and the inhabitants reduced to beggary and starvation. Large numbers of Bulgarian girls and children are said to have been sold publicly as slaves at Philippopoli and elsewhere, and numbers of Bulgarians to have been undergoing torture in prison. In one instance, where the fugitives fled for protection to a convent near subsequently burnt alive in a straw-loft. Similar Novo Selo, 40 girls were seized, violated, and atrocities are reported to have occurred at Gabrovo and other places, with the connivance, in many instances, of the Turkish authorities. I have to instruct your Excellency to report to

I have now stated to the House the origin of this insurrection, and given a general view of what subsequently occurred until the day on which the statement appeared in the newspaper which has been referred to in the Question of the right hon. Gentleman-namely, Monday, the 26th of June. The accounts of the Consuls which will be seen by hon. Gentlemen and the conduct of our Ambassador with regard to the Porte, which also will be made known to them in detail, are, no doubt, the results of a distressing state of affairs which a guerilla warfare in such a country and among such people must always furnish; but there was nothing in those accounts which at all justified the statements that appeared in the public Press, and which are the foundation of the Question of the right hon. Gentleman. On Monday, the 26th of June, the Duke of Argyll called attention to the first statement in The Daily News. I will not read that statement, because hon. Gentlemen are generally familiar with it and it is of considerable length. In the Blue Book it occupies many pages of print, and therefore I think it would be inconvenient if I were to read it in extenso on the present occasion. The statement is dated from Constantinople. It was headed "Moslem Atrocities in Bulgaria,' and it announced that 30,000 inhabitants had been slain, that 100 villages had been destroyed, that girls had been burnt alive, and that there had been a massacre of the children in the school-houses. A statement appeared the same day in another paper of equal authority-The Times-in which we were told that 10,000 persons were in prison and en-happily, almost inevitable that acts of unne

during torture. [Mr. W. E. FORSTER: That was a fortnight after.] It was not

me how far reliance is to be placed in these statements. Your Excellency has already on different occasions remonstrated with the Porte against the employment of Circassians and Bashi-Bazouks, to whom many acts of cruelty have been ascribed, and Her Majesty's Governhave reason to believe it necessary, urgently ment desire that you should, whenever you impress upon the Porte to see that its irregular forces are kept from committing atrocities which discredit the Ottoman cause. reports which have been circulated, and to Her Majesty's Government trust that the which I have referred in this despatch, will prove to be unfounded. In a conflict such as is now taking place in European Turkey, it is, un

cessary violence and bloodshed should at times

occur, and should give rise to reprisals on the other side. But the Porte will not deny that it

There was one more telegram which appeared in The Daily News of the 13th of July, and Lord Derby at once telegraphed to Sir Henry Elliot as follows:

is the duty of a civilized Government to use its | and children. These exhibitions are their reutmost endeavours for the repression of such venge after each defeat. Young women are barbarities on the part of its own forces. The now, it is affirmed, regular articles of traffic, emergency of the moment or the nature of the being sold publicly in the villages by the Tarcountry may render the employment of irregular tars and the Turks." troops a matter of necessity; but, unless these are kept under proper control, it is probable that the indignation which will be roused throughout Europe by the accounts of cruelties and outrages, and the sympathy felt for the inhabitants of the oppressed districts, may go far to counterbalance any material successes which the use of such undisciplined levies may secure. Her Majesty's Government feel, therefore, that they are acting in the interests of Turkey herself, no less than in those of humanity, in warning the Porte against the toleration of acts committed by its troops which would arouse the reprobation of the civilized world."

The House will observe that I am now trying to put before them the statements which appeared in The Daily News. I have given the pith of the first statement in The Daily News, and I have allowed the House to collect the pith of the second statement from this despatch of Lord Derby. I will now proceed to read the further statements which were made by The Daily News before we recently communicated with Sir Henry Elliot. After the two long communications to which I have been referring there appeared the following in The Daily News of July 10th:

"Foreign Office, July 13, 1876, 3 40 P.M. "The following appears in the "Daily News " of to-day :

"Belgrade, Tuesday night. "In the Tatar Bazardjik district in Bulgaria, the Bashi-Bazouks have, it is said, boastfully paraded cartloads of heads of murdered women and children. These exhibitions are their revenge after each defeat. Young women are now, it is affirmed, regular articles of traffic, being sold publicly in the villages by the Tartars and the Turks.'

Government should be able to reply to the in"It is very important that Her Majesty's quiries made in Parliament about these and similar statements of atrocities. Inquire by telegraph of the Consuls, and report as soon as you can."

The right hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. W. E. Forster) pressed me more than once on that subject, and very properly so; but he will see from what I have read that there never was any delay on the subject on the part of Her Majesty's Government. I will now read the despatches which have come from Sir Henry Elliot in reference to this matter. I wish first to explain, however, that when I

"A Vienna telegram, dated this day, pub-stated that we had not received any lished by the Courrier de France,' says:

"A horrible massacre of Christians, lasting two days, has just occurred at Gabrovo and surrounding villages. There were upwards of 10,000 victims. The Turk sent from Constantinople to direct the slaughter is Ibrahim Bey.'

On the 13th of July Lord Derby wrote
to Sir Henry Elliot as follows:-
:-

"Foreign Office, July 13, 1876.

"I transmit to your Excellency a further extract from the "Daily News," reporting that in the district of Tatar Bazardjik cartloads of the heads of murdered women and children were boastfully paraded as their revenge after each defeat. It is, moreover, affirmed that Bulgarian women are now sold publicly in the streets. Her Majesty's Government are waiting to receive intelligence from your Excellency as to the truth of these reports.'

despatches from our Vice Consuls referring to statements in The Daily News, of course I did not allude to despatches received since our last telegram. This is Sir Henry Elliot's letter, dated, as the House will see, on the 6th, and received on the 14th, and it includes the statements of the Vice Consul, which I will not read as the House will have them in their hands so soon

"Therapia, July 6, 1876. "My Lord,-I have the honour to enclose two despatches from Mr. Vice Consul Dupuis upon the present state of Bulgaria, and the excesses committed in the suppression of the insurrection. These have unquestionably been very great, as was inevitable from the nature of the force which the Porte was, in the first emer

The enclosure in the letter was as fol-gency, obliged to employ, but it is equally lows:

certain that the details which have been given, coming almost exclusively from Russian and Bulgarian sources, are so monstrously exaggerated as to deprive them of much claim to attention. Cases of revolting cruelty have been mentioned to me in such a circumstantial

manner as to make it almost impossible to doubt this truth, but which proved on investigation to be entirely fictitious; and, without impartial agents on the spot, I am unable to say more than that I am satisfied that, while great atrocities have been committed, both by Turks upon Christians and by Christians upon Turks, the former have been by far the greatest, although the Christians were undoubtedly the first to commence them. I have spoken to one of the most influential Bulgarians upon the subject of the sale of Bulgarian children, to which Mr. Dupuis alludes, and he told me that it had also been reported to him, but that he had been unable to ascertain that anything of the nature of a traffic in them was going on. Many fatherless children had been received both into Turkish and Greek families, but he looked upon them as having been taken chiefly out of charity. I said I had already made representa-quarters not entitled to much confidence. A tions on the subject to the Porte, and he promised to give me the result of the further inquiries he was making on the subject; but that the Circassians, who have no compunction in selling the children of their own countrymen, would scruple to sell those of the Bulgarians is not to be supposed, and I have not a doubt that many such instances must have occurred. I have already informed your Lordship that very strict orders were given for the disarming of those lawless people, but the operation was found to be extremely difficult, and proceeded but slowly. For weeks past I have never seen one of the Turkish Ministers without insisting upon the necessity of at once putting an end to these excesses, and the answer has been invariably the same. They (the Turkish Ministers) deny that the cruelties have been upon a scale at all approaching to what they are represented; they point out that the horrors committed upon Turkish women and children are passed over in silence; and they plead that they had no alternative but to use the irregular force at their disposal to put down an unprovoked insurrection fomented from abroad, the authors of which are responsible for the sufferings which have been entailed upon both Christians and Mahome

dans."

On the same day Sir Henry Elliot wrote again

"I have been prevented by illness from replying to your Lordship's telegram about cruelties in Bulgaria until to-day. I can add little to the statements in my despatch of the 6th instant. There is no British Consular Agent except at Adrianople, Rustchuk, and Burgas, and they have seldom been able to guarantee the truth of the reports that reached them. There can be no doubt the instigators of the insurrection began by committing atrocities on Mussulmans and burning Bulgarian villages with the view of creating exasperation between the two races. In this they succeeded, and when the Bashi-Bazouks and Circassians were called out, they indulged in every kind of misconduct, killing and outraging numbers of innocent persons. I have not been able to verify the reports of cases of wholesale slaughter which have been brought forward, which come mostly from Bulgarian, upon whose statements I have several times made known cases of maltreatment to the Porte, assured me that the accounts published were grossly exaggerated, and he expressly stated that he had no complaint to make of the conduct of regular troops. It, however, appears from other sources that the regular troops have at other times been guilty of great excess. Bulgarian children have certainly been sold, but I cannot find that there has been anything like a regular traffic in them. Until I received your telegram I had heard nothing either of cartloads of heads being paraded, or young women publicly sold, but I will make every possible inquiry. It was supposed here that the abuses had been put a stop to for some time." Now I have given pretty well to the House, and without any concealment, the general character of the reports. Of course there will be details in some of the Consular reports, but it would be most wearisome for the House to be furnished with them now. The statements in the journals must be examined and compared, and they may be susceptible of various interpretations, but it would be impossible for me at this moment to enter into any discussion of this kind. The whole of the Papers will soon be in the hands of hon. Members. One statement, however, I think I ought to make. I ought to say that in consequence of Mr. Dupuis' despatch, which was the first despatch we had ever had from the Consul at Adrianople

"Therapia, July 6, 1876. "My Lord,-Since I wrote my preceding despatch the Greek Minister has called upon me, and spoke of a Report he had received from his Consul at Philippopoli, where there is no British Consular Agent. This report mentioned a marked improvement in the state of public security, and the disarming of the Mussulmans was being proceeded with. He said the Gover-referring to cases at all like those renor was acting extremely well, but was badly seconded by some of the other authorities. I asked whether any of the Greek Agents in Bulgaria had spoken of children being sold as slaves, and he replied that none of them had spoken of it."

We now come to a telegraphic communication from Sir Henry Elliot, dated "Constantinople, July 14." He

says

lated in The Daily News, he was ordered immediately to repair to the scene of these outrages. There is one thing which I think is consolatory amid these dreadful circumstances-there appears to be a complete failure throughout in creating anything like a religious war. I cannot trace in any manner that the feeling of religious animosity has prompted, I will not say every deed,

Clause 15 (Supplemental provisions as to certificates of proficiency and pre-press his Amendment to a division. The vious attendance at school).

On the Motion of Mr. CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER, Clause amended by posed the omission of the latter part of