§ *SIR C. DILKEI beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, in reference to his statement made on Friday night as to "authorisation issued by the British Administrator at Mombasa with reference to the restoration of fugitive slaves"—which "documents," he said,
were entirely new to Her Majesty's Government. We were quite unaware of their existence. We have never seen them—whether Questions were put to Her Majesty's Government on May 28 in which these "formal documents," were described as "habitually issued" byHer Majesty's representatives" "giving to the bearers permission to….search for slaves, on which permits they have levied a fee",whether it was further stated to the Government on May 28 thatrunaway slaves, fetched by soldiers in British employ, as wanted by the Commissioner, with letters registered by the Commissioner, have been taken before British Courts for proof of ownership, and after proof, handed over to their masters ";whether it was also stated on the same day, in a Question by myself, thatBritish subjects had been compelled to surrender fugitive slaves by the British authorities, and had, in fact, surrendered great numbers of such slaves.
MR. CURZONThe answer to all the statements in the Question of the right hon. Baronet as to the contents of certain questions that have been put in this House is in the affirmative, and the explanation is as follows: —The documents to which the right hon. Member for Honiton alluded in his Question of May 28 were believed in the Foreign Office to relate to the process which I described in my speech of Thursday last and which, 650 as I stated in the House on May 28, was in operation on the mainland until December last, when fresh instructions were sent to the British Administrator not to employ force and to exercise his discretion in each case as it occurred. The Government have never seen the actual documents which were before that date in use, and were not at the time that the Question of the right hon. Baronet appeared upon the Paper aware that there was anything in them that might be of an illegal character. Since then the documents have been produced and read in the House, though I have not yet been furnished with any copies of them; and the Attorney General, who also has not seen them, has given an opinion that if they authorise the detention of slaves by British subjects, even on foreign territory, that is not in accordance with the law. ["Hear, hear!"] Under these circumstances instructions have been sent by telegraph to Her Majesty's Commissioner at Mombasa informing him that a British subject is breaking the law if he takes part in restoring to his master or otherwise depriving of his liberty any fugitive slave, and instructing him to conform his conduct to the law thus laid down. ["Hear, hear!"]
§ MR. J. A. PEASE (Northumberland, Tyneside)May I inform the House that I am prepared to hand over the documents in the course of the afternoon?
§ *SIR C. DILKEIs it not the case that the hon. Gentleman who has just made that statement asked a Question of the Attorney General, to which the hon. and learned Gentleman replied that he had not seen the documents, upon which the hon. Gentleman produced them?
§ THE ATTORNEY GENERAL (Sir RICHARD WEBSTER,) Isle of WightThe documents have never been shown to me either directly or indirectly. I never knew of their contents until they were read by the hon. and learned Member for Dumfries on Thursday night.
§ *SIR C. DILKEI personally informed Members of the Government six weeks ago that these documents were at their disposal.