§ MR. ASHMEAD-BARTLETTsaid, that to give the Prime Minister an opportunity of making an explanation in view of the coming debate, he would ask him whether on March 16 he de- 152 scribed the "sacred covenant with Russia" as follows:—
The word 'agreement' is a little fallacious; arrangement we might call it, perhaps, and one which will only last so long as there is occasion for it;and whether on April 27 he described the same agreement as—A binding covenant, a very solemn covenant, one of the most sacred covenants ever made between two nations;and whether, in view of the debate that night, he would inform Parliament what communications with Russia in the interval had led him to form so different an estimate?