§ MR. TOMLINSON (Preston)asked the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Whether the draft Conventions for facilitating trade between the British West Indies and the United States of America, as propounded by the Government of the United States, contained treaty proposals conferring upon those British Colonies the status and privileges of the most favoured nation; and, whether the Government of the United States have, ever since, expressed to Her Majesty's Government their unwillingness to enter into a treaty engagement to accord the most favoured nation treatment to the British West Indies; and, if so, when and under what circumstances such expression of unwillingness was made?
§ THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE (Mr. BRYCE) (Aberdeen, S.)The only Draft Convention proposed by the Government of the United States for facilitating trade between that country and the British West Indies will be found at page 11 of the Parliamentary Paper No. 4 Committee of 1885. The 11th Article contains a qualified and conditional Most Favoured Nation Clause. The reasons for which Her Majesty's Government were unable to agree to that Draft are given in Earl Granville's despatch of the 12th of February, 1885, in the same Paper. The Government of the United States have not since then expressed unwillingness to grant most favoured nation treatment to the British West India Colonies; but, in such correspondence as has subsequently passed, they have not given any definite answer to Earl Granville's despatch.