§ LORD CAIRNSMy Lords, no doubt your Lordships will be glad to hear from the noble Earl the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs—if he is in a position to give the House such information—Whether there is truth in the report which has appeared in the ordinary channels of information—namely, that the British Agent at Geneva had put in before the Arbitrators the points of arguments in the British Case? If the noble Earl is able to state further what has been the course of proceedings at Geneva to-day, I am sure your Lordships will be glad of any information upon this subject also.
§ EARL GRANVILLEThere are so many reports of what has been done at Geneva, and those reports clash so one with another, that I do not know to which report the noble and learned Lord refers. It was decided by the Arbitrators to keep their proceedings private for the present, and therefore—to say nothing of the respect which is due to that high Tribunal—I am sure your Lordships would not wish that I should set such a bad example as to state what I may know privately. In the Papers which I presented to your Lordships' House on Friday your Lordships have the means of seeing the course which we intimated would be taken by us in case the proposals we made to the Government of the United States should fail. I have no objection to state that that course has been taken.
§ LORD CAIRNSI am not sure that the statement of the noble Earl is quite intelligible to your Lordships—certainly 1800 it is not to me. In the Papers two courses were suggested hypothetically. One was that the points of our arguments should be put in under protest and with reservations; the other was that they should not be put in at all. Would the noble Earl say which of those two courses has been adopted?
§ EARL GRANVILLEWe have not put in the points of argument.