§ Mr. ROSBOTHAMasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he is aware 1797W that potatoes are being sold in Covent Garden Market produced by convict labour and grown in the French colonies; and whether he will make representations for the enforcement of the convention with regard to articles produced by convict labour?
Mr. A. HENDERSONIn the first part of this question my hon. Friend is presumably referring to the potatoes which are imported from Algiers. The great majority of the potatoes imported from Algeria are grown by smallholders who never employ convict labour, and, so far as I am aware, convict labour is only employed in potato growing on one large estate in Algeria, where the convicts are paid a daily wage of 18 francs as against the 13 or 14 francs usually paid to free Arab labour. With regard to the last part of the question, there is no legislation which could be enforced since, as I pointed out in my answer to the hon. and gallant Member for Maid-stone (Commander Bellairs) on 17th March, the Foreign Prison Made Goods Act only applies to goods "made or produced wholly or in part in any foreign prison, gaol, house of correction or penitentiary."