THE SOUDAN.

Manawatu Standard, Volume X, Issue 1474, 7 October 1885, Page 5 (Supplement)

THE SOUDAN.

The following is extracted from a private letter from a gantlenv.ni holding a high position m one of the Government departments m Egypt, and appaavs m the London Times : — " Sn.ne 10,090 miserable reiugeus have followed our army north, and what they'll do with them I don't know. I have strongly advised that no attempt should be made to colonize them as one mass, hut that as far as possible they should be disseminated and allowed to merge with the people. I advise this, feeling sure that the Egyptian Home Department (which since Mr Clifford Lloyd's retirement has been entirely m native hands) has neither the will nor the machinery Decessary for the difficult and delicate' task of founding all of a sudden a colony of disorganized immigrants. Our Soudan campaign has deprived all these poor creatures of home and livelihood. Worse ; still the fate of those left behind— the -Arabs, who were foolish enough to beliey%jn the English promise that if they #niia help .us we should not desert them. "We left them, but not before we had taken their camels and donkeys. I don't like to think of their fate with the Mahdi's troops. It is all too sad and humiliating."

The charge of. cowardice m the Soudan brought against Captain Mulholland by Mr F. B. Suttor, m the New South Wales Legislative Assembly, has created great indignation m Sydney, owing td Mr Suttor's refusal to substantiate the charge,and Captain Mulholland being unable to obtain a court of enquiry. A column of correspondence on the subject appears m the Sydney Daily Telegraph of the 22nd September. _ That Captain Mulholland feels his position acutely may be gathered from the following :— " To F. B. Suttor, Esq., M.P. Sir— To-day, having received no answer from you, I made enquiry at the omee of the Colonial Secretary, and I have ascertained that m a brietnote addressed, to Sir Alexander Stuart, and which I have not seen, you have declined to .make any charge against me before a military court of enquiry, and that you have not even ventured to name any single authority for the public statement by means of which you have first blasted my character, and then refused to give me the only means m your power of confronting my accusers and disproving this iufamous charge. I make no comment upon yonr procedure. I am under the double disability of being a soldier stamped by you m Parliament with an accusation of cowardice, to whom you refuse an opportunity of proving that your charge was a gross falsehood, and I am a Civil Servant of the Government to whom a mode of dealing with you as you deserve miffht be ruinous to my family. 1 have again this morning waited on Mr Dalley, who. informed me that no further steps could be taken by the Government to protect: my honour, who expressed his profound sympathy with ray case, his unqualified disbelief m the charge, and that he would take care, for my protection, that this was put on record."