§ * MR. EMMOTT (Oldham)I beg to ask the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether the attention of His Majesty's Government has been called to the sentence of ten years imprisonment and a fine imposed on Silvanus Jones, a British Colonial subject born in Lagos, by the Court of First Instance at Boma, in the Congo Independent State, on 12th February, 1904, and confirmed by the Appeal Court on 15th March, 1904; whether the prisoner maintained that the crimes he committed were authorised, both by the procedure of his superiors as well as by their direct orders; whether documentary evidence of the issue of such orders by the executive was required by the Court and refused by the local Government of the Congo Independent State; and whether, seeing that the Court itself attributed the acts of which Silvanus Jones was found guilty to the environment in which he found himself, and the example he received from his chief, and that material evidence was withheld, His Majesty's Government propose to take any steps in the matter.
§ THE UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Earl PERCY,) Kensington, S.His Majesty's Government have only just received a full report of the case from the Acting British Consul at Boma, and have it now under consideration.