MR. GIBSON BOWLEG (Lynn Regis)I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury are His Majesty's Government aware of any agreements respecting Morocco, made in recent years, either between France and Germany, Spain and Germany, France and Russia, or Spain and Russia; and has any understanding been come to between His-Majesty's Government and Russia respecting the shores or waters of the Mediterranean, the Bosphirus, or the Dardanelles. I beg also to ask the First Lord of the Treasury are His Majesty's Government aware of the existence of an agreement between France and Spain 693 come to in November, 1902, whereby those two Powers agree in certain eventualities to combine their military forces; engage themselves to assure and defend the neutrality of the Moroccan provinces of Tangier and Tetuan, and of the whole Cape Spartel promontory north of a line drawn nearly along 35th parallel of latitude, from El Penon de Velez, on the Mediterranean, to Laraiche, on the Atlantic; establish south of that line, in Morocco, spheres of expansion and influence for France and Spain respectively; and bind the Spanish Government, on the demand of Germany, to lease to Germany a port in Morocco, on the Atlantic, which may be either Casablanca or Rabat; and were His Majesty's Government aware of the existence of an agreement to this effect before they agreed to the Anglo-French declaration relating to Morocco, of 8th April, 1904, whereby the two Governments declare that they have no intention of altering the political status of Morocco.
§ MR. A. J. BALFOUR.We have no information leading us to believe that the agreements which my hon. friend refers to have any existence.
MR. GIBSON BOWLESAm I to assume that no question has been addressed to Spain or to France referring to the existence of this Protocol or whether there is merely an absence of information; and whether, in the absence of information, any inquiry has been or will be addressed to those Powers?
§ MR. A. J. BALFOURNo inquiry has been addressed by us to the Powers with regard to an instrument the existence of which we disbelieve, or, at any rate, which we have no reason to believe is in existence.