§ SIR DAVID WEDDERBURNasked the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Whether his attention has been directed to the practice of demanding passports with visas from British subjects embarking for France on French steamers at certain ports in the Mediterranean; and, whether any representations have been made to the French Government as to the inconvenience thereby entailed upon British subjects, who are accustomed to consider themselves as exempt from passport regulations when travelling through France?
§ VISCOUNT ENFIELDSir, the attention of the Foreign Office has been directed to the practice alluded to by the hon. Baronet, and Lord Lyons was instructed to call the attention of the French Government to the inconvenience to which English travellers were thus stated to be subjected. It appears from a Despatch received in reply from Her Majesty's Ambassador at Paris that Lord Lyons had already been in communication with the French Government upon the subject; and on this occasion the French Minister for Foreign Affairs stated that he had reminded the Directors of the Messageries Maritimes of the 603 facilities accorded to English travellers in the matter of passports, and that they had been requested to give directions in order that English travellers should neither be required to produce passports on disembarking at French ports nor on taking tickets for their passage.