409] FROM THE MIDDLE OF THE I9TH CENTURY III 



nation in international relations, the plebiscite was proposed 

 in the case of the cession of Heligoland by England in 

 1890, the Daily News and the Pall Mall Gazette coming out 

 as the most ardent advocates of its application in the island 

 to be transferred.^® 



Prior to the introduction of the bill of cession, various 

 inquiries were made in Parliament as to whether the pro- 

 posed agreement of cession had taken into account the 

 willingness, or unwillingness, of the people of Heligoland 

 to be transferred from English to German sovereignty. In 

 answer to a question to that effect, put in the House of 

 Lords by the Earl of Rosebery on June 19, 1890, the 

 Prime Minister and Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, 

 the Marquis of Salisbury, replied : 



My answer must be in the negative. The plebiscite is not among 

 the traditions of this country. We have not taken a plebiscite ; and 

 I see no necessity for doing so. At the same time, we have good 

 ground for believing that if there has been expressed in past times 

 any objection on the part of any of the inhabitants of Heligoland 

 to this transfer, it has been mainly connected with the fear of a 

 conscription ; and if the noble Earl will read the Despatch which has 

 been laid upon the Table he will observe that we have taken the 

 precaution to stipulate that no person alive at the. time of the cession 

 shall be subject to obligatory military or naval service. . . .^^ 



During the second reading the Prime Minister opposed 

 the plebiscite as out of the question. To give people the 

 right to decide whether they wish to be ceded would entail 

 the right to express the reason why they might not wish to 

 be ceded.®* Lord Rosebery opposed the transfer of two 

 thousand souls without their consent, reminding Lord Salis- 

 bury, who was the sponsor of the cession plan, that he 

 (Salisbury) himself certainly would not cherish the idea 

 of being arbitrarily transferred to another Power.®' 



"« Ibid., p. 39. 



J'^ Hansard's Parliamentary Debates, vol. 345, cols. 1311-1312. In 

 this connection see also ibid., cols, 1368-1369. 1482, 1656-1657, 1706; 

 vol. 346, cols. 303-307, 456-457. The Marquis of Salisbury sug- 

 gested that " it may, i)crhaps, have occurred to the noble Earl |of 

 Rosebery] that a plebiscite might be an awkward precedent as ap- 

 plied to other parts of the Empire" (ibid., vol. 346. col. 305). 



"•* Ibid,, vol. 346, col. 1263, 



°" Ibid., col. 1275. 



