§ MR. KEIR HARDIETo ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether the 1584 Cabinet inquiry into the trade of the country will include an investigation into the difference between rents, mining royalties, and railway rates paid in Great Britain as compared with those paid on the Continent, where minerals and railways are mainly State property, and the effect of such difference on British trade and commerce.
(Answered by Mr. A. J. Balfour.) With regard to this Question, I fear I can only repeat the terms of a former answer, viz., that it would, I think, be inexpedient, on the one hand, to lay down any limits beyond which the inquiry ought not to go, and on the other, formally to include within it everything which could be described as germane to the subject. If the first course were adopted it might be found that most important topics were excluded; if the second the range of investigation might become almost unmanageable. †