§ SIR HOWARD VINCENT (Sheffield, Central)I beg to ask the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he will lay upon the Table the reply of the late Marquess of Salisbury, when Prime Minister and Secretary of State, to the deputation on June 19th, 1891, of the United Empire Trade League, with regard to the treaties preventing the adoption of preferential trade within the Empire, and the despatches of 1897 to His Majesty's representatives at Berlin and Brussels, directing them to denounce these treaties as injurious to British trade.
§ THE UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Earl PERCY,) Kensington, S.The despatches alluded to were laid in 1897 ("Commer- 126 cial No. 7"). Lord Salisbury's reply was reported at length in The Times of June 20th, 1891, and I know of no precedent for laying an unofficial report of a speech as a Parliamentary Paper.