§ SIR CHARLES DILKE () Gloucester, Forest of DeanI beg to ask the Undersecretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether, under the recent agreement with regard to Samoa, the German Government has it in its power to forbid trade except under licence, and not only to sell licences for revenue but to refuse them without cause; for example, to refuse them as a rule to British subjects.
§ * MR. BRODRICKThe stipulations of the Anglo-German Declaration of 1886, applied to Samoa by the Agreement of the 14th of November last, include provisions that in the possessions and protectorates of the two Powers in the Western Pacific, the subjects of either State shall be free to engage in all descriptions of trade and agricultural and industrial undertakings subject to the same conditions and laws, and enjoying the same protection and privileges as the subjects of the sovereign or protecting State. Provision was also made securing equal as well as most-favoured-nation treatment to the ships and merchandise of both States. It is not in the power of the German Government to differentiate as against British subjects, whether by refusal of licences or otherwise, without a violation of the agreement.