§ SIR ROPER LETHBRIDGE (Kensington, N.)asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies, Whether an Ordinance has recently been passed by the Government of Ceylon, admitting certain foreign mail steamers calling at Colombo to the status of men-of-war, a privilege denied to British mail steamers; whether this Ordinance was opposed by the commercial member of the Legislative Council, by all the Native members, and by all the non-official members except one; and, whether Her Majesty's Government have given any sanction to a measure passed by the official majority in opposition to the wishes of nearly all the non-official representatives of Colonial opinion?
§ THE SECRETARY OF STATE (Sir HENRY HOLLAND) (Hampstead)An Ordinance was enacted at the end of last year by the Legislature of Ceylon continuing, during the subsistence of the Postal Convention with France of 1856, temporary Ordinances which confer on French and German mail steamers in the ports of the Colony the status of men-of-war—a privilege which is not possessed by British mail steamers. Opinion in the Legislative Council was divided, as the hon. Member states. The Ordinance was introduced at the instance of the Home Government as regards the French vessels, in order to comply with the conditions of the Postal Convention of 1856; and, as regards the German vessels, in compliance with the request of the German Government that, during the continuance of the Convention, the mail steamers subsidized by them might be allowed the same privileges as those subsidized by the French Government.