The specific guarantee to which the hon. and gallant Member no doubt refers is that contained in Article 18 of the Straits Convention of 24th July, 1923, and runs as follows: The High Contracting Parties, desiring to secure that the demilitarisation of the Straits and of the contiguous zones shall not constitute an unjustifiable danger to the military security of Turkey, and that no act of war should imperil the freedom of the Straits or the safety of the demilitarised zones, agree as follows: Should the freedom of navigation of the Straits or the security of the demilitarised zones be imperilled by a violation of the provisions relating to freedom of passage, or by a surprise attack or some act of war or threat of war, the High Contracting Parties, and in any case Prance, Great Britain, Italy and Japan, acting in conjunction, will meet such violation, attack, or other act of war or threat of war by all the means that the Council of the League of Nations may decide for this purpose. In my view, neither Lord Curzon's statement of the 19th December nor any of the other statements made in the course of the lengthy discussions which preceded the signature of the Convention in any way modify or extend the scope of this guarantee, which applies solely to such dangers to Turkish security as may arise in the area of the Straits from a violation of the provisions of the Straits Convention. I regret that I can give no information as to the nature of the subjects discussed by the Committee of Imperial Defence, the proceedings of which, obviously, cannot be made public.