HC Deb 10 March 1893 vol 9 c1585
MR. SAMUEL SMITH (Flintshire)

I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether the Foreign Office, at the request of the French Government, has issued instructions to the officers of the British Navy and the British Consular Agents in Madagascar in no way to concern themselves with exercising a police control over the dhows of the various nationalities in the waters of Madagascar, and to abstain from searching vessels of any flag in Madagascar waters; and whether he is aware that there has been a revival of the Slave Trade between Africa and Madagascar?

THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Sir E. GREY,) Northumberland, Berwick

The standing instructions on this subject were issued by Her Majesty's late Government in August last. They were a necessary consequence of the Brussels Act and of the general recognition of the French Protectorate of Madagascar. They did not result from any request of the French Government. The suppression of the Slave Trade in Madagascar waters is now regulated by the Brussels' Act as modified by the French Declaration appended to it, and we have no definite information from which we can infer that the trade has materially revived.