§ MR. BOULTON (Huntingdonshire, Ramsey)I beg to ask the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies whether, seeing that the modus vivendi agreed to between Lord Milner and the Portuguese Government on the 18th December, 1901, provided that the Portuguese Government should allow the engagement of native labourers from the Portuguese province of Mozambique for the Transvaal and Rhodesia, and that the Transvaal Government should re-establish the combined tariffs and classification of goods on the railway from Lorenzo Marques to Johannesburg, which were in force before the War; and, in view of the fact that these tariffs were detrimental to the trade of the British Colonies of the Cape and Natal, and of the attitude of the Portuguese Government limiting the engagment of native labourers, His Majesty's Government will revise the tariffs for the benefit of our own Colonies.
§ MR. CHURCHILLThe question of the differential railway rates conceded to the Delagoa Bay route under the modus vivendi has formed the subject of negotiations between His Majesty's Government and the Portuguese Government. His Majesty's Government do not now propose to take further action pending consideration of the matter by the new Government of the Transvaal.