§ MR. W. F. LAWRENCE; I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, whether his attention has been called to the non-payment, since July last, of interest on the External Debt of the Republic of Guatemala; whether he is aware that the sum arising from the duties specially allocated to the payment of debt has been impounded under the pleas of the depreciation of silver, that the Government is constructing railways and telegraphs, and that generally the country is very prosperous; and, what steps, if any, Her Majesty's Consul General has taken to urge the Government to pay the interest due to its creditors?
§ SIR E. GREYAttention has been called to the suspension of the service of the Guatemalan External Debt. Mr. Gosling, Her Majesty's Minister in Guatemala, has been instructed by telegraph to inform the Guatemalan Government that the Council of Foreign Bondholders urge that a commissioner should be sent at once to this country to treat with the bondholders, a mode of proceeding that seems well calculated to 17 bring about a settlement. Mr. Gosling has also been authorised to recommend, unofficially, that the Guatemalan Government should come to terms with the British creditors, and he has been authorised to present a letter addressed to the President of Guatemala by the chairman of the Council of Foreign Bondholders urging that a representative should be despatched to England, or that the President himself should make a reasonable proposal to the bondholders.