§ MR. DAVITTI beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he can state if any of the terms which were proposed by Lord Salisbury as a basis for a Treaty of Arbitration between Great Britain and the United States in 1897 are included in the terms of the Commission now about to be appointed for the settlement of pending disputes between the Government of Canada and that of the Republic; and, if any of such terms are so included, whether he will intimate what they are; and whether he can undertake to lay upon the Table of the House, on an early date, the text of the agreement which creates this Commission?
MR. CURZONThe negotiations in 1896 were directed to the conclusion of a general Arbitration Treaty, and did not include any specific proposals of the character apparently alluded to by the honourable Member. The text of the agreement with reference to the present Commission, which is for the settlement of certain specific questions, only arrived yesterday, and I cannot, therefore, at this moment give a pledge as asked for in the second Question. But I think that there will probably be no objection to laying the agreement before the House in due course at the close of the negotiations.