§ SIR JOHN PAKINGTONsaid, he would beg to ask, What Her Majesty's Government deemed to be the present position of the Treaty of 1852, and whether they held it to be still in force?
§ VISCOUNT PALMERSTONThe position of that treaty is like the position of any other treaty, the conditions of which have been found practically not to be capable of being strictly enforced. All the contracting parties to that treaty have been sharing in negotiations, the object of which was to modify it. It is perfectly competent for those who make a treaty, if after the lapse of time its conditions are not applicable to existing circumstances, to agree to a modification of that treaty; and that was the result of the Conferences which were lately held in London. The position of this treaty is, therefore, like that of any other treaty in which the parties who signed it are willing by common consent to make some modification.