§ COLONEL SIR H. VINCENTI beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether the German Government propose in the new Treaty of Commerce to exempt Canada from the most-favoured treatment accorded to goods from the rest of the British Empire; if this is in consequence of the preference which the Dominion is determined to accord from the 1st August to the manufactures of the United Kingdom over German goods; and, in such a case, if Her Majesty's Government will take care that its representatives stands firmly by the rights of the Colony?
MR. CURZONThe announcement to which my honourable and gallant Friend refers does not relate to the new Treaty of Commerce which is in course of negotiation with Germany, but to an ad interim provision which has been made by the 41 German Government to cover the period between the expiration of the old and the conclusion of a new Treaty. Under this provisional régime, most-favoured-nation treatment is accorded to Great Britain and her colonies, with the exception of Canada; the reason for the exclusion of the latter being, doubtless, the circumstances to which allusion is made in the Question. The Dominion Government is, I believe, fully alive to its own interests in the matter, and is able to protect them.