§ SIR HARRY VERNEYsaid, he wished to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Whether the Papers on the subject of Denmark and the duchies of Schleswig and Holstein which are to be laid upon the table will contain the Report of Vice Consul Rainalt referred to by Earl Russell in his Despatch to Mr. Paget in June, 1861; also, the Memorandum on the Affairs of Schleswig and Holstein drawn up in 1855 or 1856 by Mr. Ward, Her Majesty's Chargé d' Affaires in Hamburg; and also the terms in which the Guarantee of the British Government was offered to Austria and Prussia, that the Danish Rigsraad would repeal the Constitution of last November, which incorporated Schleswig with the Kingdom of Denmark?
§ MR. LAYARD, in reply, said, the Reports of Mr. Vice Consul Rainalt and the Memorandum of Mr. Ward were strictly confidential documents, and it was inadvisable in the present state of things, and it would lead to no good result, to make them public. The hon. Gentleman was under a mistake in supposing that any guarantee had been given by the British Government that the Rigsraad should repeal the constitution. It must rest with the Rigsraad when it was convoked to decide whether it would or would not do so. The hon. Gentleman probably referred to the 467 Protocol that had been laid upon the table with the other papers.
§ SIR HARRY VERNEYsaid, he wished to ask, Whether Her Majesty's Government have not given a guarantee that the Danish Rigsraad would repeal the constitution incorporating Schleswig with the Kingdom of Denmark.
§ MR. LAYARDsaid, ha had stated that Her Majesty's Government could not have guaranteed that the Rigsraad, which was a constitutional assembly, should revoke the constitution. It remained for the Rigsrad to decide what course they would take. What Her Majesty's Government proposed was, that a Protocol should be signed in London between the Powers parties to the Treaty, by which the Danish Government would undertake to call together the Rigsraad, and submit to them proposals for withdrawing the constitution. Her Majesty's Government could not of course pledge themselves that the Rigsraad would repeal the constitution when it met.