§ VISCOUNT CANTERBURYasked the Secretary of State for the Colonial Department, When he will be prepared to lay on the Table of the House the Report of Commodore Goodenough and Mr. Consul Layard on the various questions connected with the Fiji Islands referred to them for investigation; and whether that Report will be printed and circulated before the announcement by the Secretary of State of the views of Her Majesty's Government with respect to the questions to which the Report referred? It was not his intention on the present occasion to raise any question on the merits of the subject to which his Question referred; he desired merely to obtain the information mentioned in his Questions.
THE EARL OF CARNARVONsaid, he fully appreciated the noble Viscount's abstinence from discussing this question at present. The Report had reached the Government, but the question was hardly ripe enough for him to produce the Papers in their present state. Still, he hoped to place them before long in the hands of their Lordships, and to lay them on the Table of the other House of Parliament. He would do that as soon as possible, but would take care that, in any case, sufficient time should elapse between their production and any statement Her Majesty's Government might deem it right to make upon them, to allow of their being mastered.