§ Mr. RAMSAY MACDONALDasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if His Majesty's Government was at present engaged in negotiations with Belgium regarding the boundaries of the Congo; and, if so, whether he could state when the negotiations would be ended, and whether the annexation of the Congo Free State by Belgium would be formally recognised before the result of these negotiations would be announced?
§ The SECRETARY of STATE for FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Sir Edward Grey)The answer to the first part of the question is in the affirmative: the negotiations are informal, and the result, when reached, cannot be embodied in any formal agreement until the annexation of the Congo Free State by Belgium has been recognised. It is impossible to say when the negotiations will be ended. I have repeatedly stated that the recognition will not take place till the actual state of affairs reported from the Congo is satisfactory to Treaty obligations and the House has had the Reports before it. This seems to me to be the important condition on which recognition should depend, rather than frontier negotiations.
§ Mr. RAMSAY MACDONALD (for Sir George White)asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he would lay upon the Table of the House the Reports which had been received from His 1387 Majesty's Consular staff on the Congo since the Congo was annexed by Belgium to the present day, together with the communications, if any, which had been exchanged between His Majesty's Government and the Belgian Government since June of last year?
§ Sir E. GREYThe Reports received hitherto are not sufficient to form an opinion as to the effect of the change of Government in the Congo. I propose, in the first instance, to make a communication to the Belgian Government respecting the partial information which we have received, and when that is more complete to present papers which will enable the House to judge of the effect of the reforms promised.
§ Mr. RAMSAY MACDONALDasked if the Belgian Government have been asked for an explanation with regard to the speech delivered by M. Renkin, in reference to the Congo and the rights of the signatory Powers of the Berlin Act therein, in the Belgian Senate on the 24th February last?
§ Sir E. GREYI do not ask for an explanation because I hold that it is the language which the Belgian Government hold to us which is the correct expression of their view, and not the version given in debate here of language which has never been addressed to us at all. I considered that the way I dealt with that point in my speech in this House was preferable to the course suggested in the question. But I have been assured by the Belgian Government that nothing in the speech of the Minister of the Colonies referred to warrants the contention that the Belgian Government means to withdraw from the international obligations which Belgium has inherited from the Independent State of the Congo, or which she has herself contracted in signing the Berlin and Brussels Acts; and that she has never contested in the case either of England or of any other Power the rights which the international Acts give to the Signatory Powers.