MR. WALKERI beg to ask the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies, seeing that Sir Augustus Hemming, formerly a principal clerk in the Colonial Office, has recently stated, with reference to specific causes of complaint against the Crown Agents, that such cases exist in profusion in the archives of the Colonial Office, whether he will give a Return of the nature of such complaints during the last five years, and of the action that has been taken upon them by the Secretary of State.
§ MR. CHURCHILLThe Secretary of State does not consider that any adequate reason has been given for, or that any useful purpose would be served by, giving such a Return as the hon. Member suggests, especially in view of the exhaustive inquiry instituted by Mr. Chamberlain in 1901, which was based on an examination of any cases in the three preceding years in which the Colonial Governments considered that their interests had not been sufficiently protected by the Crown Agents.