§ MR. PERKS (Lincolnshire, Louth)I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether, when Her Majesty's Government received notice in May, 1887, from the Nicaraguan Government that the latter Government intended to terminate the Commercial Treaty of 1lth February, 1860, any proposals were submitted for the renewal of such Treaty, and especially the provisions of the Treaty which secured for British trade equal rights with other nations in traffic through the proposed Nicaraguan Canal; and whether the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty, dated the 19th April, 1850, made between Her Majesty and the United States Government, is still in force, whereby the two 555 Governments contract that neither the one nor the other will ever obtain or maintain for itself any exclusive control over the said Ship Canal, and whereby Great Britain and the United States further engage that when the said Canal shall have been completed they will protect it from interruption, seizure, or unjust confiscation, and that they will guarantee the neutrality thereof so that the said Canal may for ever be open and free, and the capital invested therein secure?
§ SIR E. GREYA new Treaty with the Nicaraguan Government was signed on the 26th March, 1889, and contained an Article guaranteeing to British subjects, commerce, and navigation, the rights of the most favoured nation in regard to any canal, railway, road, or other mode of transit which might be established in Nicaragua. The ratifications of the Treaty have, however, not been exchanged with the Nicaraguan Government, and it is, therefore, not in force yet. Nothing has occurred to invalidate the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty of 1850.