§ SIR STAFFORD NORTHCOTEI wish to put a Question to the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade with reference to a publication which has appeared in the newspapers on the subject of some evidence given before the Royal Commission by the hon. Member for Derby (Mr. Plimsoll), imputing grave offences to the officers of the Board of Trade. The Question I wish to ask is, Whether his attention has been called to the publication, and whether he is prepared to take any steps with reference to it?
§ MR. CHICHESTER FORTESCUESir, my attention was naturally called to the publication of a letter of the hon. Member for Derby in The Times of Saturday. Since then I have addressed a letter to the hon. Member recapitulating what has passed before the Royal Commission, saying that the Royal Commission would judge for themselves what it was their duty to do; but that as he had chosen to publish that letter in the newspapers it was necessary for me, as President of the Board of Trade, to take the matter up. I then called upon the hon. Member to furnish me—as the person bound to look after the pure administration of the Department, and also to protect honest and honourable officers serving in it—with the names of "the many officers" of the Department whom he accused of corruption, and with the grounds and nature of his charges, or, if he still persevered in the refusal to do so which he had addressed to the Royal Commission, that he should then retract absolutely those charges. I have not as yet received an answer to that letter.