§ MR. M'COANasked the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Whether the instructions and powers of the British Plenipotentiaries to the Congress of Paris, who signed the Treaty of March 20, 1856, included authority to sign the Declaration of April 16, 1856, and if he will lay a Copy of them upon the Table of the House; whether the Declaration 1156 of Paris has ever been ratified by the Crown or approved by Parliament; and, whether there is anything in either the Treaty of Paris, its Protocols, or the Declaration to show that Article 11 of the Treaty, which neutralized the Black Sea, "was not expected to be a permanent provision," while "the Declaration was intended to embody a permanent principle?"
§ LORD EDMOND FITZMAURICEThe British Plenipotentiaries at the Congress of 1856 had no instructions with reference to the Declaration, the signature of which was not contemplated when the Congress was summoned. The concurrence of Her Majesty's Government in the principles of the Declaration was communicated to Lord Clarendon in a despatch of the 13th of April, 1856, and after its signature the course taken by Lord Clarendon was entirely approved by Her Majesty's Government in a despatch of the l8th of April. Lord Palmerston declined to lay the instructions, and so did Mr. Bourke (see debates of April 13 and July 2, 1875). The Declaration was laid before Parliament, but did not require ratification. The phraseology quoted by the hon. Member does not appear in the Treaty, its Protocols, or in the Declaration. The 11th Article of the Treaty states that the Black Sea is formally and in perpetuity interdicted to the flag of war. The wording of the Declaration shows that it was intended to embody a permanent principle in so far as the Powers who adhered to it were concerned.