§ SIR GEORGE CAMPBELL (Kirkcaldy, &c.)asked the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Whether successive Governments of this country have always been in favour of keeping the Suez Canal open to ships of war of belligerents, or whether any Government has ever proposed to limit its use to commercial purposes and the peaceful passage of transports and vessels of war in time of peace between the Great Powers; and, whether the French Government has always insisted on keeping the Canal open to belligerents, or whether any French Government has ever proposed or suggested to Her Majesty's Government that it should be consecrated to peaceful purposes only, as always urged by its founder, M. de Lesseps?
§ THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE (Sir JAMES FERGUSSON) (Manchester, N. E.)It is unnecessary, for practical purposes, to go further back than the Convention of London of 1885, conducted on behalf of this country by the Government of the right hon. Gentleman opposite, when the Powers then assembled agreed to a Declaration that the freedom of the Suez Canal at all times should be guaranteed. Her Majesty's Government then and since proposed that the Canal "should be free for the passage of all ships in any circumstances;" and I cannot find that any former Government—at least, since the opening of the Canal—held any other view. This, I think, was also always the view of the French Government, and it was the expressed view of the Canal Company as early as 1869, although they always wished the Canal to be excepted from military and naval operations.
§ SIR GEORGE CAMPBELLI beg to give Notice that on the first appropriate Vote I shall call attention to the inconvenince and complications that would be likely to arise from the use of the Canal by belligerents to the world in general, and to this country in particular.