Lord Balfour of Burleigh to Earl Granville.— (Received October 22)

National Bible Society of Scotland,
My Lord,
224, West George Street, Glasgow, October 18, 1883

ON behalf of the Board of Directors of the National Bible Society of Scotland, I venture to ask your Lordship’s good officers in connection with any Treaty arrangements that may be made between Her Majesty’s Government and the Government of Corea.
As your Lordship is aware, provision is made under Article VIII and IX in Lord Elgin’s Treaty with China, signed at Tien-tsin in 1858, for the protection of persons, native or foreign, who may teach or profess the Christian religion, and for liberty to British subjects to travel, with passports, to all parts of the interior; while under the favoured-nation clause missionaries and Bible Society agents have been able to reside in any part of China to which their duty has called them.
In the interests of their mission, and of possible native converts in Corea, the Directors of this Society are anxious that similar arrangements should, if practicable, be made with the consent of the Government of Corea; and they respectfully solicit your Lordship’s powerful sympathy and aid in this behalf.
I may assure your Lordship that any agents we may send to Corea will take care, as those in China have always done, to conduct themselves prudently, and with due regard to local regulations and circumstances.

I have, &c.
(Signed)　　BALFOUR OF BURLEICH, President