§ COLONEL HUGHES-HALLETT (Rochester)asked the First Lord of the Admiralty, To what extent, up to the present time, it has been customary, at any of the offices of the Admiralty or of Her Majesty's Dockyards, to allow designs, plans, and specifications of Her Majesty's Ships of War and of Her Majesty's Dockyards, and information generally of a more or less confidential character, to be imparted to foreigners, and to allow foreigners to make sketches of any portions of those ships, dockyards, or fortifications; and, whether, pending the issue of the Regulations to which he referred on the 5th instant, he will take steps, by printed notices or otherwise, to prevent any information of an important character being given by any Government employé to foreigners, except on the written authority of some senior and responsible officer?
§ THE FIRST LORD (Lord GEORGE HAMILTON) (Middlesex, Ealing), in reply, said, the Question must have been put under some misapprehension. The Admiralty had never given authority to the officers of Her Majesty's Dockyards for information of a confidential character to be furnished to foreigners, or to allow them to make sketches of ships, dockyards, or fortifications. Any official so acting, without the authority of the Admiralty, would be guilty of a breach of trust, and would be liable to punishment.