§ SIR CHARLES DILKE (Gloucestershire, Forest of Dean)To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he can inform the House as to the scope of an International Conference to be held at Brussels next month, with reference to the arms and ammunition clauses of the Brussels General Act of 1892; and whether opportunity will be afforded for consideration by the Conference of alleged violations of these clauses in the Congo State, as, for example, set forth in Africa, No. 1, of the present year.
(Answered by Secretary Sir Edward Grey.) The object of the International Conference which is to meet at Brussels next month, and at which His Majesty's Government will be represented, is to revise, with a view to making them more stringent, those articles of the Brussels Act which refer to the trade in arms and ammunition in Africa. It is to be presumed that the Conference will have ample opportunity of considering any information bearing upon the subject which points to the need for closer supervision.