MR. GIBSON BOWLESI beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether Article 9 of the Treaty of Berlin (signed on the 13th July 1878), by which the six Powers signatory to the Treaty enacted that all the old fortresses of Bulgaria should be razed at the expense of the Principality within one year, or sooner, if possible, and that the local Government should immediately take steps for their demolition, has been carried into execution; whether Article 52 of the same Treaty, which declared that all the fortresses and fortifications existing on the banks of the Danube from the Iron Gates to its mouth, have been carried into execution; whether he can state what fortresses have been razed in Bulgaria and on the banks of the Danube in execution of these Articles of the Treaty; and, whether Her Majesty's Government held themselves to be under the same obligation in regard to these Articles of the Treaty as in regard to other Articles thereof?
§ MR. T. W. LEGH (Lancashire, S.W., Newton)asked if the hon. Baronet would also state if Article 59 of the Berlin Treaty relating to Batoum would be carried into execution?
§ *SIR E. GREYI can only answer the question on the Paper. The Article relating to the Bulgarian fortresses is Article 11. Both these and the Roumanian fortresses, to which the Treaty of Berlin referred, if not actually razed, were allowed to fall into decay, and have ceased to exist. Her Majesty's Government recognise the whole of the Treaty, but the extent and degree of the various obligations imposed by it, and the measure in which they are shared by the parties to the Treaty, must be gathered from the words of the Treaty itself.