§ MR. THOMAS BAYLEY (Derbyshire, Chesterfield)I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he will be able within a short time to present to the House further Papers relating to slavery and the slave trade in the Sultanate of Zanzibar, in continuance of those issued in. April, 1900, and whether such Papers will include a statement of the reasons which have led His Majesty's officials to estimate that there are only half as many slaves in the two islands as were believed to exist in 1897, and to conclude that further abolitionist measures are not necessary; and whether His Majesty's Agent and Consul General will shortly issue a Report on the condition of the British East Africa Protectorate.
§ * THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Viscount CRANBORNE,) RochesterPapers will be laid after the recess; they will include all the information which has reached His Majesty's Government on the subject. 218 His Majesty's Agent and Consul General has been so short a time in the Protectorate that he has not yet had time to prepare a report, but he will be asked to do so.