§ 16. Mr. ARTHUR SAMUELSasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether his attention has been called to the statement in the Swedish Parliament of the Swedish Prime Minister that the Allied Governments had expressed their satisfaction with the situation as regards the mining of the Kogrund Passage by the Swedish Government; and whether he is prepared to make any statement on the subject?
Mr. BALFOURIt is not certain that the Swedish Prime Minister has so ex-pressed himself, though certain papers have reported that he had done so. In any case, the Allied Governments, far from expressing satisfaction with the present situation, addressed a Note last October to the Swedish Government vigorously maintaining their original point of view. I propose to lay this Note shortly before the House. Since then, on more than one occasion, His Majesty's Minister at Stockholm has reminded the Swedish Minister for Foreign Affairs that His Majesty's Government considered the mining of this passage and the Swedish regulations connected with its navigation to be an infringement of our treaty rights and as an unfair discrimination against our Allies and ourselves; and still more recently His Majesty's Minister, acting on instructions, again approached the Swedish Government with a view to arranging for the passage of British ships in the Baltic (through the Kogrund Passage.