§ * SIR CHARLES DILKE (Gloucestershire, Forest of Dean)I beg to ask the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether His Majesty's Government will lay before Parliament the Agreements entered into with Siam by the French Government as well as by His Majesty's Government as to the outlying portions of the Siamese dominions, and referred to in Lord Lans-downe's despatch covering the documents relating to the arrangements with France; whether the French Agreements thus referred to or incorporated have yet received the sanction of the French Legislature; and, if not, whether their present form may be considered as final in connection with the assent to be asked from the French Legislature to all the arrangements dealing with Siam.
§ EARL PERCYTwo Agreements have been entered into with Siam by the French Government; as the first of these was not ratified by the French Legislature a second Agreement was negotiated, and now awaits ratification. Both of these Agreements have been published 530 in the French Press. The first Agreement has, we understand, been entirely superseded, and there would be no object in presenting it to Parliament. Until the second Agreement has received the sanction of the French Chambers, we cannot undertake to say that it has assumed its final shape. The Agreements entered into between His Majesty's Government and Siam with regard to the Siamese Dependencies in the Malay Peninsula are of a strictly confidential nature, and in deference to the strong wish of the Siamese Government it is not intended to make them public.