§ SIR. CHARLES DILKE (Gloucestershire, Forest of Dean)I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether the Bankok-Khorat railway contract, from which an English firm was ejected by the Siamese Government in August 1896, was subsequently handed over to the German engineers who had formerly been competitors with Messrs. Jardine, Matheson, for the contract, and is now on the point of completion; whether our treaty with Siam was violated by the action in this case of the Siamese Government; and whether Her Majesty's Government intend permanently to withhold the correspondence on the matter from Parliament.
§ MR. BRODRICKThe Siamese Government have themselves undertaken the construction of the Bankok-Khorat railway, and this is, of course, no violation of the treaty between Great Britain and Siam. Her Majesty's Government see no particular reason for laying Papers on the subject before Parliament.