§ Mr. A. J. BALFOURI am not quite sure, Sir, whether I am in order in making a brief personal explanation of a very important misreport of something I said last night—not important from the point of view of this House, but important from the point of view of the Colonies. Would it be proper that I should intervene now?
§ Mr. SPEAKERI have no doubt the House will wish to hear the right hon. Gentleman.
§ Mr. BALFOURMy attention was only called to it a, minute or a second ago by my right hon. Friend (Mr. Austen Chamberlain). It is in an interruption which I made last night in the course of the speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Under-Secretary for the Colonies (Colonel Seely) on the Second Reading of the Consolidated Fund (Appropriation) Bill. I am reported in the OFFICIAL REPORT to have interrupted him in these words:—
I do not think the right hon. Gentleman has listened to a word I said. I repeated over and over again, with
§ the utmost emphasis I could use, that I thought the doctrine stated by Lord Ripon fourteen years ago was applicable, and that no statesman on either side of the House would ever think of departing from it."
§ What I said was "inapplicable"—that the doctrine was inapplicable, and that in the conviction as to its inapplicability everybody on both sides of the House was agreed. So that I am reported as having stated exactly and precisely the contrary of what I stated with "the utmost emphasis." As the correction is of some importance beyond the walls of this House, I thought probably I might be allowed to make it now.
§ Mr. SPEAKERThere is something to be said for the reporters. I believe they often have difficulty in catching what is said because right hon. and hon. Gentlemen will not address me.
[NOTE.—The correction in the Daily Part desired by Mr. Balfour is made in the OFFICIAL REPORT of 21st July, 1910, as contained in this Volume.]