I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether, seeing that Article 59 of the Berlin Treaty enacted that Batoum should be constituted a free port, essentially commercial; and that, in July 1886, the Earl of Rosebery instructed Her Majesty's Ambassador at St. Petersburg to inform the Russian Minister for Foreign Affairs, that the proceedings of the Russian Government, with regard to Batoum, constituted a violation of the Treaty of Berlin unsanctioned by the Signatory Powers; Her Majesty's Government consider themselves to be under the same obligation with respect to Article 59 as with respect to the remaining Articles of the Treaty of Berlin?
I can only repeat what I said in reply to a similar question on the 14th instant, that the extent and degree of the various obligations imposed by the Treaty of Berlin must be gathered from the words of the Treaty itself.