§ BARON HENRY DE WORMSasked the Prime Minister a Question of which he had given him private Notice. It was, Whether the Prime Minister had seen a telegraphic statement in one of the leading Liberal organs of the day from the correspondent of that newspaper in Cairo, to the effect that there was now no Khedive, no Government, and no Ministry in Cairo, and that everything which the English and French had declared they would not allow had been done there; whether that statement was correct; and, if so, what steps Her Majesty's Government would take to prevent the continuance of such a state of anarchy?
MR. GLADSTONEI do not know that there was any occasion for the hon. Member to have given me Notice of the Question, or that my answer could have been improved by Notice. I take that statement to be a sort of summing up—very effective, rather figurative, and, perhaps, a little poetical—of a situation which is undoubtedly grave and formidable, but which can only be treated in reference to a statement of particulars a little more exact than that very general statement. I hope that in a few days satisfactory information will be given on some of those particulars.