§ MR. HENRY SEYMOURsaid, he wished to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Whether a publication, called The British and Foreign State Papers, issued annually, and edited by the Librarian of the Foreign Office, is printed either wholly or in part at the public expense; and if so, whether such a selection might not be distributed to Members at the ordinary price of Parliamentary Papers instead of being charged 30s. a volume; and whether it might not be brought up to the present time like the French collection?
§ MR. LAYARDsaid, in reply, that The British and Foreign State Papers were printed at the expense of the public, and sold at a certain rate, the proceeds passing to the public account. As to the distribution of the publication at the ordinary price of Parliamentary Papers, there was, of course, no objection to that if the House were willing to incur the expense. As to the work being brought down to the present time, that was impossible. The French publication referred to was of a different nature. It was a collection, hastily brought together, of documents published in various ways on the Continent. The State Papers, on the other hand, which were published by the British Foreign Office, were very carefully edited. They could not be brought down to the present day, because many of the papers were not printed till four or five years after they had 1792 been made use of. Some years ago the collection was very much behindhand. The present Librarian of the Foreign Office, however, who was a gentleman of great intelligence and zeal, had published two volumes a year, and was anxious, if possible, to increase the annual issue to three volumes. The work required so much care and attention that it was not desirable to undertake more than two or three volumes a year. By 1867 or 1868, he believed the collection would be brought up to within five years.
§ MR. HENRY SEYMOURsaid, that as far as he was aware they were not secret papers.