HC Deb 08 June 1894 vol 25 cc693-4
SIR E. ASHMEAD-BARTLETT (Sheffield, Ecclesall)

I beg to ask the Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs a question of which I have given private notice—namely, whether it is correctly stated in a Paris telegram in The Standard and other newspapers of this morning that the French Minister for Foreign Affairs stated in the French Chamber yesterday that the French Government would treat the Anglo-Belgian Agreement as null and void?

*SIR E. GREY

I only received notice of this question after 3 o'clock. A very full report of the French Minister's speech has appeared in The Times, and I have no reason to doubt the accuracy of that report. But, at any rate, without reasonable notice I am not in a position to make any comment on that speech.

SIR E. ASHMEAD-BARTLETT

I beg to give notice that on Monday will repeat the question, and will further ask—

*MR. SPEAKER

Order, order! The hon. Member will put his question on the Paper.

SIR C. W. DILKE

May I ask the Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs whether the protest against the Agreement between Great Britain and the Congo State, previously made by Germany at Brussels, has not now been communicated to Her Majesty's Government, and, if so, whether there will be any objection to lay its terms before Parliament in order that the grounds of the protest may be known and the policy of the German Empire explained, and also whether Turkey has made any protest?

*SIR E. GREY

Germany has not made any general protest against the Anglo-Belgian Agreement. The German Ambassador has now communicated to us the correspondence with the authorities of the Congo Free State, in which the German Government asked for assurances that the lease of the road to Lake Tanganyika should not interfere with the existing frontier, and should not affect the commercial and other rights secured to Germany in the Congo Free State by the Convention of 1884. On both points complete and unqualified assurances have been given both here and at Brussels. There will be no objection to laying this-correspondence if Germany and the Congo State assent. No communication has been received from the Turkish Government.