§ 1. Mr. GINNELLasked the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether any American journalists here not in complicity with the British Government have been convicted of transmitting false information to America; if so, what action has been taken with regard to them either here or in America; if not, can he state any reason but their refusal to become accomplices in falsehood for denying 1269 them liberty to transmit the truth to a neutral country; and to what restraint and surveillance are those American citizens resident in this country now subject?
§ The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Lord Robert Cecil)The answer to all the suggestions in this question is in the negative.
§ 2. Mr. GINNELLasked the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he will now explain his statement that no objection had been raised to American citizens of repute visiting Ireland for a philanthropic purpose, when at that time Messrs. Kelly and M'Clure, eminent American citizens on their way to Ireland on such a mission, were prevented from going there; will he state the nature of any correspondence to which that incident led; and what beneficial result is attributed to that treatment of citizens of a neutral State?
§ Lord R. CECILThe assumptions of fact contained in the first part of the question are untrue, and the remainder of the question does not therefore arise.
§ Mr. GINNELLDid not the Noble Lord deny, last summer, that American citizens had been prevented, at the very time they were detained in Liverpool? Then that is only an official denial.