§ SIR PERCY BURRELLasked the Foreign Secretary, Whether Her Majesty's Government will adopt effective measures to deter subordinate Agents from disobeying the orders which they receive from the Foreign Office, so that in future impunity might not confirm them in a course of disobedience such as in the case of Consul Cameron appeared likely to have been a main cause of involving this country in a war with Abyssinia?
LORD STANLEYDisobedience to instructions on the part of subordinate agents of the Foreign Office never ought to be, and, so far as my knowledge extends, never has been passed over. If such acts of disobedience were wilful, they would be followed by the recall of the person committing them. If they arose from an error of judgment or from 632 a misconception of instructions given, probably an expression of disapproval would be sufficient. The decision in each case must depend upon the particular circumstances of the case—we cannot lay down any general or invariable rule. But with regard to the case of Mr. Consul Cameron, though I quite admit that he may have been more mixed up than was desirable in the politics of Abyssinia, yet if the reference of the hon. Baronet is, as I suppose it to be, to the order which Mr. Cameron received to return to his post, we have every reason to believe that that order did not reach Mr. Cameron until he was detained by King Theodore, and had therefore ceased to be a free agent. It would not therefore be just to punish a man for not obeying an order which it was physically impossible for him to obey.