§ LORD EUSTACE CECILasked the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies, Whether any reply has been sent by the Colonial Secretary of the Cape Colony to the statements contained in 1085 the letter addressed to him by the Boer Chiefs in December 1880, and in the newspaper copies of Proclamations signed by them, and purported to have been published at Heidelberg on the 23rd of December last; whether he is in a position to lay any such reply upon the Table of the House; and, if not, whether Her Majesty's Government propose to take any official notice of these documents?
MR. GRANT DUFFSir, I am not aware that the Colonial Secretary of the Capo Colon}' has sent any answer. Her Majesty's Government have not taken any official notice of these documents. There are various statements in them with which it would be quite impossible to deal without communication with Sir Owen Lanyon, with whom we have, of course, no means of communicating.