§ MR. BADEN-POWELL (Liverpool, Kirkdale)asked the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Whether Her Majesty's Government have received that "further communication" (in reference to greater facilities for trade between the United States and the British West Indies) "from Washington, in reply to Lord Granville's Despatch to Sir L. West of February 12 1885," which Her Majesty's Government "were expecting" on March 11th; and, if so, whether he can inform the House as to the tenour of this communication, or give any further information as to the prospect of any progress being made in these 1844 negotiations for securing greater facilities of commercial intercourse between the British West Indies and the United States?
§ THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE (Mr. BRYCE) (Aberdeen, S.)The answer of the United States Government, which has been received, is to the effect that the treatment of the question of the improvement of commercial relations between the United States and neighbouring States must be dealt with as a whole, and that partial and local attempts in that direction must therefore be held in abeyance, until their fitness as parts of a comprehensive adjustment can be considered, and that the United States Government were, therefore, unable to offer the explicit views which Her Majesty's Government requested, or to indicate the particular measures which might prove applicable to British Colonies. If the hon. Member desires to see the Correspondence on the subject, there will be no objection to laying it upon the Table; but it does not add much to the information already possessed by the House.