MR. CHAPLINasked the honourable Member for Portsmouth, If he intends to proceed with the Motion on Friday which stands first in his name on that day?
§ MR. T. C. BRUCEI am very anxious to proceed with that Motion if it can be done without inconvenience to the negotiations at present going on. I am informed that certain Papers material to the questions involved in my Motion have not yet been laid before the House, and in that case it might be inopportune for me to proceed. I therefore beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether he considers that a discussion should take place in the present state of the negotiations, and whether it would or would not be inconvenient to the public service? I also wish to ask whether the Government are prepared, at this particular period, to give those explanations without which such a discussion would lose a great deal of its value. If the discussion would be inconvenient, I shall have no alternative but to withdraw my Motion. But I trust the right hon. Gentleman will give me an assurance that he will give me the earliest opportunity which the negotiations will allow to bring forward my Motion, and will place me in the same fortunate position in which I now stand upon the Paper. The question is one of the greatest importance, and ought to 256 be debated as soon as possible before the end of the Session.
§ MR. DISRAELIIf the House will allow me, I will postpone my answer to the Question of my hon. Friend until we come to the Orders of the Day. It would be somewhat inconvenient to reply to it now.