§ MR. STUART-WORTLEYI beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether any steps are being taken to re-assemble in 1894 the International Conference on the Protection of Industrial Property and the Repression of False Trade Descriptions; and, if not whether there is anything in the proceedings of the Conference held at Madrid in 1890 which binds the Powers represented to await the initiative of any one of them with respect to proposing either the time or the place for a further Conference?
§ SIR E. GREYAt the Madrid Conference in 1890 it was decided that the next meeting of the Union for the Protection of Industrial Property should be held at Brussels. The duty of making arrangements for the meeting, therefore, devolves upon the Belgian Government, with the co-operation of the International Office at Berne. No invitation to this meeting has yet been received by Her Majesty's Government, and it is therefore presumed that the date has not at present been definitely fixed; there is nothing that absolutely precludes any Power from proposing a date for the acceptance of the Belgian Government and the other Powers interested.
§ MR. STUART-WORTLEYI wish to ask the hon. Baronet whether, even if the Belgian Government were entitled to fix the day for the assembling of a new Conference, the two years in which they were bound to do so have not already expired?
§ SIR E. GREYI cannot answer that question without notice.