§ LORD PONSONBY OF SHULBREDEMy Lords, perhaps the noble Viscount the Leader of the House could answer two questions which I would like to address to him. The first is what the business will be next week after Monday. The second arises out of the debate we had last week on the events in the Far East. I should like to ask the noble and learned Viscount whether, in view of the repeated reports in the Press as to the contents of the Japanese reply to the Note of the twelve Powers, that reply has been yet received by His Majesty's Government, and if so when it will be published. If the reply has not been received, I do not know if the noble and learned Viscount could tell us how it is that the consents of the Note seem to be known in Tokyo.
§ THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR (VISCOUNT HAILSHAM)My Lords, in reply to the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, so far as business is concerned, on Monday we are meeting at a quarter to three and hoping to get all stages of the Import Duties Bill. After that we have at present no Orders of the Day set down for next week. I am told there is likely to be a Motion by one of my noble friends on the question of Waterloo bridge, but that Motion has not as yet made its appearance on the Paper. I think it is probably going to be set down for one day next week. There may be some small Bill which will be ready from the Home Affairs Committee, but there will not be anything of substance or anything controversial so far as the Government are concerned during next week after Monday.
As to the second question, the noble Lord was good enough to intimate to me he was proposing to ask this question; accordingly I have communicated with the Foreign Office and the answer which I have from them is that no reply whatsoever from Japan to the League of Nations has yet been received by the Foreign Office. Of course, it is possible that there 659 may be a reply on its way to Geneva, but if so there is no intimation to that effect of which we are aware. So far as the Foreign Office can tell, the forecasts which have appeared in some newspapers—I do not know whether they are as to the probable or as to the actual con 660 tents of the Note—are quite unauthorised, and at any rate we know nothing of the source from which the report emanates, or as to the accuracy of that report.
§ House adjourned at a quarter past four o'clock.