§ MR. TATTON EGERTON (Cheshire, Knutsford)I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether it is true that the Sugar Convention Bill has passed the French Chambers; and what steps Her Majesty's Government intend to take to fulfil the international engagement made by this country?
§ * SIR J. FERGUSSONThe Bill which has been passed by the French Chambers is not the Sugar Convention Bill, but one of domestic policy, designed to recoup 1901 the State for the great profits which the sugar refiners are said to have been making by the existing system. As regards the second paragraph of the question, the time for the ratification of the Convention expired on the 1st of August.