§ SIR J. CARMICHAEL (Glasgow, St. Rollox)I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether the Government will consider the possibility of coming to an International understanding, either by a Conference or otherwise, as to the relative strength at which the armaments of the respective nations should be maintained, with a view to checking the vast and ever-growing military and naval expenditure, which is now crippling the commercial resources and impoverishing the population of every civilised country?
§ * THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Sir E. GREY,) Northumberland, BerwickHer Majesty's Government would be 437 quite ready to consider and to support any practical proposals for arriving at such an understanding, but they fear that an initiation on their part would at present have no useful result.