§ MR. SYDNEY BUXTON (Tower Hamlets, Poplar)I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether Her Majesty's Government is able to inform the House as to the present position of affairs relating to the enforcement of the General Act of the Brussels Conference, and whether he will lay the Protocols of the Conference upon the Table of the House; and whether it is true that, unless the Government of the Netherlands affixes its signature to the General Act of the Brussels Conference by the 1st of January next, the deliberations of the Conference for the suppression of the Slave Trade, agreed to by the other sixteen Powers represented at the Conference, will be nullified?
§ THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Sir J. FERGUSSON, Manchester, N.E.)The Protocols will be laid immediately. The present position is that Holland still refuses to sign the Act with the Declarations annexed to it relating to import duties in the Conventional Basin of the Congo. The period during which her signature can be affixed expires at the end of the year.
§ MR. BUCHANAN (Edinburgh, W.)Have Her Majesty's Government made or will they make, any special representations to Holland to induce them to waive their objections, and to give their assent to the Act?
§ SIR J. FERGUSSONHer Majesty's Government will do all in their power.