§ SIR H. DRUMMOND WOLFFasked the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Whether Her Majesty's Government has received any reports bearing upon the subject of the Slave Trade in the Red Sea; and, whether there is reason to believe that the Egyptian officials have unfairly exercised the quarantine regulations against British trading steamers for the purpose of favouring their own flag and preventing a knowledge transpiring of the traffic in slaves carried on at the ports of the Red Sea?
§ MR. BOURKESir, we have received a great number of Reports upon the subject of the Slave Trade in the Red Sea. With regard to the quarantine regulations generally, I have nothing to add to the answer I gave the other day to my hon. Friend the Member for the City of London (Mr. Twells), but as to these regulations being made for the purpose of "preventing a knowledge transpiring" of the traffic in slaves in the Red Sea, it is hardly safe for me to assert that these regulations are made for that purpose. I would hope that they are not; but the fact is undoubted 870 that the quarantine regulations as at present administered have a very injurious effect upon legitimate trade carried on in British vessels, and that the visits of British vessels cannot but be unpalatable to all persons, whether in authority or not, who are interested directly or indirectly in the traffic in slaves.