§ 12. Mr. MORELasked the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he is aware that Messrs. Nicoll and Son, iron, steel and metal merchants, of Dundee, purchased through a London house last December a large quantity of steel tubes for the Banff and Macduff District Gas Company, to be supplied by a firm at Düsseldorf; that the tubes were despatched to Duisberg on 24th January for conveyance thence by canal to the sea board; that the French military authorities stopped their despatch; that all attempts to get these goods through either viâ Rotterdam or Bremen have failed, and that serious inconvenience and loss are being increased by the delay; if definite representations have been made by His Majesty's Government in this particular case, which was notified to the Board of Trade on 21st March last, and what reply has been received; whether there is an immediate prospect of these goods being released and, if not, seeing that this case is typical, and that many tons of goods contracted for by British firms continue to be held up in the Ruhr district, what steps His Majesty's Government propose to take through international arbitration or otherwise to test the legality of French action in hampering British trade in territory over which German sovereign 1348 rights have not been abrogated by any process of international law recognised by His Majesty's Government?
§ Lieut.-Colonel BUCKLEYParticulars of this contract were forwarded to the British High Commissioner at Coblenz with instructions to endeavour to secure the release of the goods, and a report is being called for as to the present position of the matter. As regards the action taken by His Majesty's Government relative to the hampering of British trade with the occupied territories of Germany, I would refer the hon. Member to the statement made by the President of the Board of Trade on the 12th April, and to the answer which I gave to the hon. Member for Westbury on 23rd April.
§ Lieut.-Colonel BUCKLEYI cannot say.