§ MR. BRYCE (Aberdeen, S.)I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury, whether the attention of Her Majesty's Government has been called to the insufficient provision now made by law for the custody and protection of local archives and records, ecclesiastical and civil, and to the consequent injury or loss 52 of many documents of public interest and permanent value, as well as to the difficulty of ascertaining in what keeping many such archives or records are, so that they may be consulted for historical or administrative purposes and, whether the Government will advise Her Majesty to take steps, by the appointment of a Royal Commission or otherwise, to have a full inquiry made into the present condition of such archives and records and into the best means of making a public provision for their safe keeping, and generally of rendering them more accessible and available for study than they are at present.
§ THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Mr. A. J. BALFOUR,) Manchester, E.The Government will gladly consider the subject of the Question, and inquiry shall be made as suggested in the last paragraph. There seems to be a great deal to be said for the proposal, but, from such consideration as I have been able to give to the matter, I have been forced to the conclusion that the responsibility for preserving and indexing this voluminous mass of materials could never be undertaken by a Government Department.