§ MR. LUPTON (Lincolnshire, Sleaford)I beg to ask the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he can give any information about an alleged epidemic of smallpox at Metz which began last July, has assumed alarming proportions, has seriously affected trade and industry, and has caused the usual Eastertide festivities to be abandoned; can he say if the population at Metz is protected by vaccination and re-vaccination with the same thoroughness as the rest of the German empire; and, if he has not this information, will he send a special commission to inquire and report.
§ SIR EDWARD GREYI have no information other than that supplied to me by the hon. Member. His Majesty's Ambassador at Berlin would, no doubt, ask the German authorities to facilitate any inquiry which competent British authorities may desire to make independently in the interests of medical science, but I have not been advised that the occasion is one which requires the appoint- 1142 ment of a special commission by His Majesty's Government.