SIR HOWARD VINCENTI beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he has any information to the effect that the German Government contemplates an increase in the duties of steel and other manufactured imports from the United Kingdom; and, in such case, if the Government will intimate that they will be compelled to withdraw the free market accorded for nearly sixty years in this country to manufactures of Germany.
§ THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Viscount CRANBORNE,) RochesterRumours have reached His Majesty's Government from various sources of an intention on the part of the German Government to increase the duties on steel and on various other goods. His Majesty's Government are fully alive to the importance of the matter; but, in the absence of definite information as to the intentions of the German Government, I am not able to make any statement in regard to those of His Majesty's Government.