§ Colonel ASHLEYasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what further consideration has been given to the resolutions adopted by the executive committee of the Navy League on the 8th August and 28th November, 1916, and forwarded to His Majesty's Government, which demanded that any negotiations for peace which may hereafter be entered upon as between the Central Powers and His Majesty's Government should embody, as an essential condition, an undertaking on the part of the German Government of a surrender of ton for ton of merchant shipping for vessels of the British mercantile marine and the 1031W mercantile marine of our Allies destroyed by German warcraft during the War; and what decision, after eighteen months' consideration, has now been arrived at?
§ Lord R. CECILAny negotiations for peace will be conducted by the Allied Governments acting in concert, and I am, therefore, unable to make any statement of an individual character such as is called for in this question.