§ SIR C. DILKE (Gloucester, Forest of Dean)I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether, in connection with Government proposals to increase the number of Parliamentary Ministers, the Foreign Office may be directed to obtain from Her Majesty's representatives in the principal European countries a Return showing the number of paid Parliamentary Ministers having seats in their respective elective assemblies?
§ THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Mr. A. J. BALFOUR, Manchester, E.)I am quite ready to confer with the right honourable Baronet as to the value of the information he desires. I confess that I should have thought that the Parliamentary circumstances of the various countries were so different from those of this country that hardly any instructive lesson could be drawn from a statement of the number of secretaries and under-secretaries required to carry on the work in connection with their departments.