1. Sir GILBERT PARKERasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, whether this Government has suggested to the Belgian Government the necessity for a simple land measure which will take cognisance of Native communal and tribal rights and tenure, and which was recognised by treaties regulating the international position of the Congo State, and by negotiations guaranteed by Native chiefs when the International African Association was formed?
§ The SECRETARY of STATE for FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Sir E. Grey)The answer is in the negative. From a communication recently received, His Majesty's Government understand that the Belgian Government desire to see vacant lands in the Congo brought under cultivation by the natives and have intimated that groups of natives applying for domanial lands will be granted them gratuitously on certain conditions.