HC Deb 02 March 1905 vol 142 cc201-2
MR. SWIFT MACNEILL

I beg to ask die First Lord of the Treasury a Question of which I have given private notice—namely, whether, in recommending Lord Selborne to the Crown for appointment as High Commissioner in South Africa, he had regard to the circumstances that Lord Selborne had filled the office of Undersecretary for the Colonies from 1895 to 1900, at the period of the Rhode; and Jameson conspiracy, the Jameson raid, and the friction between the Colonial Office and the South African Republic which led to the Boer War, and to the effect calculated to be produced by such an appointment—

*MR. SPEAKER

Order, order! A Question in that form would not be put on the Paper.

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

I am quite willing to answer it.

MR. SWIFT MACNEILL

Well, answer.

*MR. SPEAKER

I am not at all objecting to the hon. Gentleman's right to ask a Question in proper form on the subject of the appointment of Lord Selborne; but the hon. Member was putting his Question in rhetorical language that would not be permitted on the Paper. I think he had better frame his Question in more suitable language.