§ MR. C. E. PRICE (Edinburgh, Central)I beg to ask the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, whether his attention has been called to the fact that no information regarding conditions of labour, wages, and the cost of living appears in the Consular Reports from Austria-Hungary, Havre, and Philadelphia, similar to those from the Consuls in Germany and Chicago, U.S.A.; and whether he will issue instructions to all Consuls in His Majesty's service to supply such information in order to test the value of the trade and its effect upon the people of each country reported upon.
§ SIR EDWARD GREYI will consider, in consultation with the Board of Trade, whether any general instructions could be advantageously issued to His Majesty's Consular Officers on the points referred to. In view, however, of the complexity of these subjects and of the fact that the trustworthy information available with regard to them in some districts is frequently very scanty or wholly lacking, it may be that, generally speaking, they are more suited for special inquiry by expert investigators than for treatment in the Annual Reports of His Majesty's Consuls.