§ MR. DARBY GRIFFITHsaid, he would beg to ask the noble Lord the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Whether he is now able to give any assurance that no French Troops will be moved into the Provinces of Chablais and Faucigny until the question of the dispositions to be adopted as to those neutralised Provinces shall he finally determined upon by diplomatic consultation and agreement? He did not wish to make any attack upon the noble Lord, for he acknowledged the difficulty of his position, and whoever had occupied that position would have found himself surrounded by the same difficulties:—but he wished to point out that if France were allowed to occupy those provinces before any settlement took place she would not 1117 withdraw her troops afterwards; and therefore he desired the British Government to make their proceedings intelligible at this stage of the matter. He thought it would be better for Switzerland that they should withdraw from the matter at once than that they should be drawn into a proceeding which would be delusive from the beginning. He would just remind the noble Lord that M. Thouvenel bad said in one of his despatches that, in case of the annexation of Savoy to Prance these provinces would be given to Switzerland, and he (Mr. Griffith) only expressed the feeling of this country in the matter when he asked the noble Lord whether he could give any assurance that that arrangement would be carried out, and that France would not be allowed to occupy those provinces.