A lively debate arose in the House of Commons on
Tuesday on the vote of £26,000 for Cyprus police. It appears that this vote is really an equivalent for a military vote,—that the. police to be raised under it are to do military duty,—and that it is only a vote for police because soldiers mild not be voted under a Civil Service Estimate. The reason it could not be put on the Army Estimates was that it is illegal to employ aliens in the military service of the country without a special Act of Parliament, so the soldiers have been perforce. transformed into policemen. Now we have already about 7,100. native police, and if 1,100 more are to be voted under this vote,. Cyprus, which has only a population of 150,000, will have about one policeman to every seventy inhabitante,—i.e., about one man in every sixteen men will be a policeman. The House did not like the juggle between soldiers and police- men, and did not like paying out of English money for a dependency which they had been told would be self- supporting ; and it liked least of all voting such a sum without having a Cyprus. Budget presented. So a lively debate arose, but Mr. Shaw Lefevre's dilatory resolution, requiring full accounts before voting the money, was negatived, by 99 against 72.
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