§ MR. HENRY SEYMOURsaid, he rose to call the attention of the House to the publications entitled the State Papers and Hertslet's Commercial Treaties. He had taken the liberty last year of bringing the former publication under the notice of the House. The State Papers were issued every year, but sometimes they had been as much as twenty years in arrear, and the volume issued in 1864 was about twelve years in arrear. This publication was issued at the public expense, and was sold at such a price as put it quite beyond the reach of the great majority of the people. His hon. Friend the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs had undertaken to get the price reduced, and, as he understood, also to look into the contents to see whether matters were not printed as State Papers which ought not to be put in that category. The hon. Gentleman had got the price reduced from 30s. to 10s.; but he did not think that the contents of the volume had received his attention. The hook contained 1,400 pages of a most miscellaneous character, and he ventured to say that five-sixths of the contents were not State Papers at all. If he understood the meaning of the term, Correspondence laid on the table of that House, Acts of Parliament, and French Budgets twelve or fourteen years old, hardly came under the title of State Papers. One of the first matters in the volume for 1864 was "Austria—Correspondence about the Affairs of Italy. 1848." He then found under "Belgium" the law, modifying law of 1835, relative to Foreigners, 1841; Budget, 1852; Finance, Receipts, Dotations, Public Debt, &c. Under "Fiance"—Correspondence relating to the Affairs of Italy, 1852. Next came "Germanic Confederation"—Correspondence about the Affairs of Italy, 1852. And then they had "Great Britain"—the whole of the Finance Accounts of 1853. The work also contained the correspondence of fourteen years ago relating to the Slave Trade, the French Budget of an equally ancient date, foreign Correspondence of 1852 relating to obscure British subjects, Correspondence on Italian affairs, Treaties made with Indian chiefs by the American Government, and so on. The House would agree with him that a great portion of the work was perfectly valueless, and ought never to have been 790 printed at the public expense. He did not know whether the particular item for printing the work appeared in the Votes, but he was informed that it was included in the expenses of printing for that House under the head of Stationery Votes, instead of being placed under that of the Foreign Office, to which it properly belonged. The publication entitled Hertslet's Commercial Treaties was also edited by the Librarian to the Foreign Office, and he (Mr. Henry Seymour) was desirous of knowing whether that work was published at the public expense; and if not, what were the peculiar relations subsisting between the Foreign Office and their Librarian with regard to work, of which thirteen tons lay at the Stationery Office unsold. In his opinion this hook ought not to be printed at the expense of the nation. He begged to draw the attention of the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Layard), as an administrative reformer, to the fact that by eliminating such items from the Stationery Votes a considerable reduction might easily be made under that head.
§ MR. LAYARDsaid, the two works were entirely distinct, the State Papers being compiled by the librarian to the Foreign Office, and printed at the public expense, while Hertslet's Commercial Treaties was a purely private work, the Government merely taking a certain number of copies for the use of the public offices and foreign missions. He entirely differed from the hon. Member as to the value of the State Papers, although he agreed with him in his expression of regret that they were so far in arrear. Mr. Hertslet, with whom he had communicated on this subject, was not responsible for this delay, and was anxious to exert himself to the best of his ability for the public service. He intended for the future to publish three instead of two volumes a year; so that by 1870 the arrears would be cleared up. The work was in his (Mr. Layard's) opinion most valuable, and he was in the habit of constantly referring to and quoting the volumes, which contained resumés of British and foreign treaties and digests of the most important public documents published in this country and elsewhere. Mr. Hertslet had just completed a very important addition to the work—namely, a double index—an index of subject and an index of date—which would be of the greatest service to those having the conduct of public affairs. The price at which the work was sold had been 791 reduced from 30s. to 10s. per volume, which did little more than repay the cost of its production, and was very little for a volume of 1,400 pages. However, Mr. Hertslet thought he should be able still further to reduce the price.
MR. WHITEquite agreed with the hon. Member for Poole (Mr. Henry Seymour) with regard to our State Papers, and their almost absolute worthlessness for practical purposes, and instanced the fact that in 1863 he found the Danish Succession Treaty of 1852 had not then been published in that collection, and he had been compelled to refer for it to the Austrian State Papers, which were brought down eleven years later than those printed by our Foreign Office. The work whose merits, or rather demerits, they were discussing, did not contain many important State documents, whilst it was stuffed with details of palavers and agreements in reference to the slave trade, made ten years previously with certain illustrious personages, such as King Will, Sam Tory, Black Foobra, Old Jack Brown, and other petty chiefs on the West Coast of Africa; not one of whom was able to write his own name. His experience had taught him that for special treaties made by Great Britain, it would be a waste of time to expect to find them in our own State Papers, and he habitually referred for such documents either to Martens' Recueil, published at Gottingen—a German work of deservedly high reputation, or to the Archives Diplomatiques—an admirable French periodical which furnishes, by authority, the very latest information with respect to all international treaties, conventions, or correspondence. He hoped the Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs would impress on the librarian of his office the necessity of making a better selection of documents, and of publishing them within a shorter period of their dates than twelve or fourteen years. Such an extraordinary delay justified the suspicion that the Foreign Office did not desire to furnish that full and complete information upon State affairs to which the House and the public were entitled. Seeing how closely the financial condition and well-being of the country were bound up with our Foreign policy, the amplest information ought to be placed within the reach of every hon. Member who desired to make himself acquainted with our treaty obligations; and it was a reproach to our Foreign Office that such knowledge was not 792 obtainable from our own State Papers, but from foreign Collections published at Leipsic, Gottingen, or Paris.