§ MR. PEEKsaid, he wished to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, For what reason the old practice of giving translations of all Parliamentary Papers in foreign languages has 742 been discontinued; and, whether he does not think it desirable that all Papers connected with recent occurrences in Greece should be also circulated in English?
MR. OTWAYsaid, that all documents in foreign languages when published by the Foreign Office were, as a general rule, translated into English, and there was no desire to depart from that ancient practice. But with regard to certain recent Papers, taking into account the interest which the House and the country felt in the transactions to which they referred, the Foreign Office felt desirous to communicate them with the least possible delay. On many occasions, therefore, they had delivered those Papers to Members within 20 hours of the time when they had been received at the Foreign Office. Besides, the clerks in the Foreign Office would not have been numerous enough to translate all these Papers and accomplish the other work they had to do. It had, therefore, happened that two or three Papers were published in French. With that exception, all other Papers had been, and would continue to be, translated into English.