MR. GIBSON BOWLES (King's Lynn)I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether, in compliance with Sir Charles Euan-Smith's request, a reply was sent to his despatch of 24th May, 1892, proposing to submit to His Majesty the Sultan of Morocco for his acceptance an agreement for the immediate suspension of final relinquishment by Her Majesty's Government of the right of according British protection to Moorish subjects; and, if so, whether he has any objection to laying that reply on the Table of the House; also, whether he can state what was the nature of the proposals contained in the document which Sir Charles Euan-Smith stated in his despatch of 29th July, 1892, that he tore up and returned to the Sultan's Minister as partaking of the nature of an insult?
THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Mr. J. W. LOWTHER,) Cumberland, PenrithIn reply to the first question, I have to say that Sir Charles Euan-Smith was authorised to make proposals, which he sent home both by telegram and despatch, to the Sultan, and it was only owing to inadvertence that the telegram authorising him to make these proposals was not inserted in the Blue Book. With reference to the second question, we have been informed by 331 Sir Charles Euan-Smith that the document he tore up was in the nature of a draft Treaty; but its provisions were entirely different from those which the Sultan had already at that time accepted and promised to sign.