§ SIR HENRY FOWLERI beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury if he will lay upon the Table of the House a copy of the document which he described as the Queen's authority to the Historical Manuscripts Commissioners, which restricts their operations to manuscripts belonging to private persons; and whether the Trustees of the British Museum have taken any steps for the printing of any historical manuscripts acquired by them.
§ MR. HANBURYI do not propose to lay the document formally upon the Table, but I shall be glad to show the right hon. Member a copy. It authorises and appoints certain Commissioners "to make inquiry into the places in which documents illustrative of history or of general public interest belonging to private owners are deposited." The British Museum only print and publish a few exceptional documents, but they regularly publish catalogues and indexes of all MSS. A forthcoming volume will include the Hardwicke papers, which were only bought in 1899 and were then in a state of chaos. Even while the MSS. are being sorted they are open to the inspection of scholars—and, of course, when sorted and catalogued they are open to the general reader. The catalogues and indexes are published and sold to the public.