§ LORD BUCKHURSTrose to ask the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Whether there was any objection to laying on the Table of the House a copy of the Correspondence between Her Majesty's Government and the British High Commissioners during the negotiation on the Alabama Claims and since the presentation of the American Case referred to in Earl Granville's letter to Sir Edward Thornton, dated the 13th of May, 1872? The noble Lord said, he introduced the subject in the form of a Question in consequence of a letter from the noble Earl to Sir Edward Thornton, recently laid on the table, in which the noble Earl said the British Commissioners, in the information they had furnished during the negotiations and since the presentation of the American Case, had uniformly maintained that the claims for Indirect Losses were not included, nor intended by them to be included, in the terms of the Case to be submitted to Arbitration. And in the course of the recent debate the noble Earl had stated that on a particular day a statement was received by the Government from the British Commissioners to the effect that the Indirect Claims had been waived by the American Government. The document containing this statement should be on the Table of the House. That a 1583 Correspondence such as he referred to did exist was clearly proved by the speech of Sir Stafford Northcote at Exeter, and the lecture delivered by Mr. Bernard at Oxford. In the latter, Mr. Bernard stated that throughout the whole of the proceedings the British Commissioners were constantly in communication with their Government. He would ask, therefore, whether it was consistent with the dignity of their Lordships' House that information of such importance as that which the speeches of these gentlemen contained should first he communicated in the forms of lectures and speeches. Again, in a letter to Sir Edward Thornton, the noble Earl opposite said that the nature of the claims made by America was closely defined and limited. He should be glad to learn where that definition and limitation occurred—for they were not to be found in the instructions given to the Commissioners, nor, as far as he could see, either in the Treaty or the Protocol. They must, therefore, occur in the correspondence for which he was now asking. He would at the same time ask the noble Earl the second Question of which he had given Notice—whether the sum—namely, £5,000,000 or £6,000,000 sterling—claimed by the American Government, as stated by Mr. Bernard, in his lecture at Oxford, is the total amount of the "Direct Claims" now presented to the Arbitrators at Geneva.
§ EARL GRANVILLEsaid, he must decline to enter into any statements made by Mr. Bernard, and would further beg to point out that the noble Lord would, find the amount of the American claims by consulting the proper records. As to the Correspondence between Her Majesty's Government and the British High Commissioners, there had been no correspondence between them since the presentation of the American Case. With regard to the clear definition of the Claims referred to arbitration, that clear definition would be found in the Treaty itself. All the Correspondence, except that which was confidential, had been laid upon the Table; and as to the confidential portion of it, he saw no advantage in presenting it to the House.