§ COLONEL SYKESsaid, he wished to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Whether he is to understand by his reply to the Question put to him on Friday the 13th May, that if the report alluded to be confirmed or authenticated, he will cause inquiry to be made into the circumstances stated in the Shanghae Consular Gazette of the 15th March 1870?
MR. OTWAY, in reply, said, if the report were confirmed inquiry would unquestionably be made into the treatment of the English Consuls in China. But he found that the newspaper mentioned did not give the statement authoritatively, but merely published it as a rumour from Macao. It was obviously impossible for the staff of a public Office to occupy itself with inquiries into every statement which appeared in every foreign newspaper.