LORD STRATHEDEN AND CAMPBELL, in rising to ask Her Majesty's Government, On what ground the original concessions to M. de Lesseps have, in the present Session, been presented to one House and not to both Houses of Parliament? said: My Lords, some days ago I moved for the original concessions to M. de Lesseps which have been lately given in a separate Return to the other House of Parliament. The noble Earl the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs endeavoured to persuade your Lordships that the Motion was uncalled for; and, 706 as I understood him, told us that these documents were in the Egyptian Correspondence of this Session. I was thus led to withdraw the Motion. Having inquired more assiduously than before, I now assert with confidence that they are not in any number of the Egyptian Correspondence lately brought before the House. It is quite possible that if you go back for years in a former series of despatches upon Egypt, these concessions might be found; and this, perhaps, is what the noble Earl intended to convoy to us. But it is well known to be within the limit of our usages to reprint documents which bear on urgent questions of the day, although they may be found in some remote or obsolete collection. As I before explained, Her Majesty's Government have acted on this principle with reference to these concessions in the present year, and in the other House of Parliament. In this House, equally, I ask them to supply a want, even if they do not recognize an error.
§ EARL GRANVILLEsaid, it was the rule of the Foreign Office, when Papers were presented to the one House of Parliament, they should also, at the same time, be presented to the other. They had always observed that rule. The answer to the noble Lord's Question was that those Papers were presented in the year 1876 to both Houses of Parliament, and that they had not been presented to either House this Session. The noble Lord was under a misapprehension as to that. What had happened was this—as their Lord ships were aware, the individuals composing that House did not change at a General Election, whereas the result of a General Election often produced a great change in the persons composing the other House of Parliament. That was the case after the last General Election; and he understood that, for the convenience of new Members of the other House, a few copies of those Papers from the stock at the Foreign Office were sent to the Library of the House of Commons, and that House gave orders that they should be printed. If the noble Lord now desired to have an individual copy of the Papers which were produced in 1876, he should be very ready to furnish it to him; but, as far as regarded the House collectively, those Papers had been already presented, and he was not aware 707 that there was any occasion to print them again.
LORD STRATHEDEN AND CAMPBELLThe noble Earl has said nothing to contravene my observation—namely, that there has been an undue disparity of proceeding on this subject in the two Houses of Parliament.
§ House adjourned at a quarter before Eight o'clock, till To-morrow, a quarter past Four o'clock.