§ MR. F. W. MACLEAN (Oxford, Woodstock)asked the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Whether the attention of Her Majesty's Government has been directed to the case of one F. B. Coles, a British subject resident in the Republic of Hayti, and now undergoing a sentence of three years' imprisonment at Port au Prince; whether a representation has been made to the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs by a number of British subjects in Hayti to the effect that the said F. B. Coles is innocent of the offence with which he was charged, and that he did not obtain a fair and impartial trial in the Criminal Court at Port au Prince; whether, notwithstanding the intervention and pro- 664 tests of Her Majesty's Consul at Port au Prince, the authorities of the said Republic refuse to take any action in the matter, either in the way of releasing the said F. B. Coles or otherwise; and, whether Her Majesty's Government, if satisfied of the innocence of the said F. B. Coles, will demand, at the hands of the authorities of Hayti, his immediate release, and redress for the wrong to which, it is alleged, he has been subjected?
§ THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE (Mr. BRYCE) (Aberdeen, S.)I must refer my hon. and learned Friend to the reply I gave yesterday—Monday—to a Question on this subject by the right hon. Baronet the Member for Hampstead (Sir Henry Holland), and in which I stated that Her Majesty's Government, believing that justice had not been done in the case of Mr. Coles, were about to despatch a Commissioner to Hayti to call the serious attention of the Haytian Government to the case of Coles, as well as to the complaints and representations received from British subjects on this and other acts of oppression and denial of justice.