ABYSSINIA—CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN DR. BEKE AND OTHERS AND THE FOREIGN OFFICE.—PERSONAL EXPLANATION. (Hansard, 7 December 1867)

§ MR. NEWDEGATE

asked permission of the House to offer a very short explanation with reference to the Orders of the House on the previous day, in which his name appeared. He yesterday thought it his duty to move that the words— Also such portions of a Letter addressed by Dr. Beke to the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs dated the 14th day of October 1867, relative to a conversation between him and Mr. Palgrave at Cairo, in December 1855, as bear upon the foregoing Correspondence, be added to a Resolution of the hon. Member for Southwark (Mr. Layard)— For an humble Address for Copy of the Correspondence between Dr. Beke, Mr. Purday, Mr. Palgrave, and the Foreign Office, referred to in the Letter from Dr. Beke to Lord Clarendon, dated the 11th day of June 1866, published in a recent Blue Book. He (Mr. Newdegate) had given a Notice for to-day— For an Address for Copy of a Letter addressed by Dr. Beke to the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, dated the 14th day of October 1867, relative to a conversation between him and Mr. Palgrave at Cairo in December 1865, which in the then state of the House he would not go into even if he were pronounced to be in order, about which it seemed there was some doubt. But what he wished to explain to the House was this—that his reason for having thought of proceeding with the notice which stood in his name that day was that the Resolution of the House was for an Address for certain Correspondence up to June, 1866, only; and one of his principal objects was to show that there was a subsequent correspondence in the hands of the Foreign Office which might be essential to Dr. Beke's defence. That object he had achieved; and although he regretted that the House was not disposed to accede to his proposition, still he had accomplished his object, which was that no one could believe that the correspondence terminated on the 11th of June, 1866, which was more than a year ago, and he 688 wished to leave this question in this position:—Dr. Beke had placed in the hands of the Foreign Office documents which he conceived were essential to his justification; and he (Mr. Newdegate wished to express the hope that as Dr. Beke had thus placed that correspondence in the hands of the Foreign Office and Her Majesty's Government, they would not allow him to be prejudiced by any false impression arising from the limited Resolution which the House had come to—a limit which cut off the correspondence after the 11th of June, 1866, more than a year ago. And in explanation of his own conduct last night, he (Mr. Newdegate) could only express his regret, on reflection, that the Speaker had reason, on that occasion, to say that he (Mr. Newdegate) was out of order. He was out of order on that occasion. He had ever studied to keep within the rules of order. He hoped that the Speaker would consider the extraordinary difficult position of an independent Member of the House—a difficulty which was every day becoming greater. He had never known a Session in which the difficulties were greater; and he trusted that hereafter he would have the good fortune of never giving the Speaker good reason to say that he was out of order again.