§ MR. BOURKEasked the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, 810 Whether the Paper drawn up by Mr. Wood, Her Majesty's late Consul General, containing a reference to Biserta Bay, is within the control of the Foreign Office; and, if so, whether he will lay it before Parliament with the other Papers on the subject of Tunis?
§ SIR CHARLES W. DILKESir, the Report referred to is one of a confidential scheme, and, as my right hon. Friend is aware, it is contrary to the custom of the Foreign Office to publish documents of this kind. I may, however, add that, although allusion is made in it to Biserta, it gives no details as to the character of the harbour, or the expenditure necessary to convert it into a harbour of value.
§ MR. BOURKEasked the Secretary to the Admiralty, Whether he can, without detriment to the public service, lay upon the Table any Reports which are in possession of the Admiralty from naval officers, upon the importance, strategical or political, of Biserta Bay?
§ MR. TREVELYANSir, there is no Report in the Hydrographical Department of the Admiralty bearing on Biserta Bay. There is a short letter in the General Record Office from Admiral Spratt to Lord Clarence Paget, written in 1864; but it contains nothing that is not still more emphatically and fully said by the gallant Admiral in his letter published in The Times of last Monday, and there are expressions in it which justly impelled the writer to mark it confidential.