first article in the programme of a serious statesman in England was the maintenance at any price of the Ottoman Empire. Today, enlightened by experience, England recognises that she has been wishing what was impossible.-Fort. Rev. Jan. 7th, 1876.1

It need surprise no one to find war raging next spring between the great Powers of Eastern Europe. We ourselves have supplied the strongest incentive to strife in the purchase of the Suez Canal Shares... By that act, in effect, England recognises that the partition of Turkey is inevitable.-Fraser, Jan. 1876.

of

The English public have been so habituated to an attitude of supine indifference to foreign affairs that for the Government in one and the same year to interfere effectively for the maintenance peace in the West, and to acquire a new and influential position in the East, was to excite an unwonted feeling of national satisfaction... Argue as critics may as to the details of the purchase ... the sound instinct of the whole country settled the question on the very first day of its announcement, that it was the right thing, done in the right manner at the right moment.-Blackwood, Jan. 1876.

The broad popular view was one of approval of the transaction on the ground that it had a distinct political import, and indicated that the Government saw their way to secure our communications and our interests, independently of Turkey. Thus attention was drawn away from the question of European Turkey and the Christian provinces. If they were thought about at all, they were thought of as provinces which might be left to work out their own salvation, aided perhaps by powerful friends, but unhindered if unhelped by us. People's thoughts were diverted to discussions as to the precise significance of the purchase. On the face of it, it might mean anything, from a mere financial speculation up to a deliberate design to annex Egypt bodily. A mere financial speculation would not, indeed, have aroused much enthusiasm. But on the other hand, though abroad the tendency was to adopt the largest interpretation, the English papers began to repudiate any such construction as our foreign critics would put upon the transaction.

The Moscow Gazette declared that England bad taken the lead in partitioning Turkey, and that Russia and the other Powers had better lose no time in joining in. England, they thought, was now willing to accept the terms offered by the Czar Nicholas to Sir Hamilton Seymour.2

"Home and Foreign Affairs." Compare Sir R. Rutherford Alcock's article in the same magazine, p. 56.

2 See T. Dec. 10th for translation of the article.

[M. Lemoinne accuses us of a wish to confiscate Egypt, and asks why France should not in like manner confiscate Belgium. By our purchase of the shares we have silenced this criticism, and shown that our sole wish is to keep the Canal open.]-P. M. G. Nov. 26th, 1875.

....

[It is a mistake to criticise the purchase (as Mr. Fawcett1 appears to do) simply as a commercial speculation. On the other hand, foreign critics err by imputing to us too wide designs. We can understand why our neighbours should suspect a design to deal with Egypt as the East India Company dealt with Hindostan, but they may dismiss that fear.] No party in this country —Tory, Liberal, or Radical—has the slightest intention or wish to add Egypt to our over-grown dominions. The House of Commons has set its face against nothing more than conquest. . . If other States should intrigue for a mastery over Egypt we must protect ourselves; if they respect its independence so shall we. -T. Dec. 2nd, 1875.

The fact is, that as soon as the questions were raised people began to be very much puzzled as to the exact meaning of the act of the Government and the position they intended thereby to acquire. Lord Derby added to the perplexity by presenting the transaction in a light quite different from that in which it was generally regarded.

The eternal Eastern Question is before us again.... and I, for one, have no idea that the year 1876 will see it finally settled.

What we do or determine in it will be frankly laid before Parliament. In our diplomacy, as far as the action of this country is concerned, there will be no mystery, and no reserve. [He went on to speak particularly of the purchase.] I hold that to have been a wise step. . . . It would not have been a wise nor an honest one if it had borne the construction which has been occasionally placed upon it. [He disclaimed] a wish to establish a protectorate over Egypt, an interested reversal of our policy on the whole Eastern Question, or an intention to take part in a general scramble. . . . We have obtained additional security for a free and uninterrupted passage through Egypt to India. . . . An opportunity was afforded . . there was no deep-laid scheme in the matter.... As to the financial aspect of the bargain, that is not the most important. I see no reason why the State should lose a penny by it in the end.-Lord Derby.2

1 See Mr. Fawcett at Hackney, Nov. 30th, post, p. 246.

2 Meeting of Conservative Working Men, Edinburgh, Dec. 17th, 1875. In answer to Mr. Labouchere, Mr. Gladstone said in Parliament (March 31, 1881)It is stated that the present value of the Suez Canal Shares is about £78. At the time the shares were purchased for £23 18. 8d., their price in the market was about £30, the difference being the sum set down by the Government in their calculation against the postponement of profit on the shares till 1894. The share profit is now considered to be worth in the market £58 on the £20 share receiving profit con

Lord Derby, when he thus reduced the matter, not, to be sure, to a merely financial issue, but to the acquisition of a control over the Canal, laid himself open to be asked, "Can the British Government do more than any private persons owning the same shares? If so, how much more?" Thus he did much to dash the warm approval of the Government policy, and to encourage criticisms directed to inquire, how far it was possible that the transaction should go beyond mere finance, without assuming that character which Lord Derby so carefully deprecated. The answer to the question "How much more?" would perhaps be the measure of the extent to which the Government was committed to the policy "Egypt," and no clear answer to this was forthcoming. But people were very loth to believe that Lord Derby presented the transaction in its true light. If, indeed, it meant no more than Lord Derby would have people believe, why then it would be a grave question whether there was anything in the merits of the transaction to outweigh the various objections to which it was open. Lord Derby's speech was regarded partly as a sort of conventional diplomatic disclaimer, partly as the outcome of his own idiosyncrasy, and it became the occasion of not a little sarcastic comment.

The Eastern Question had been settled by a coup d'état upon the Stock Exchange, and Turkey was abandoned to her fate. Egypt was annexed. The Bulls of England had vanquished the Bears of Russia. Moab was to be our washpot, and over Edom we had cast out our shoe. France and M. Lesseps were confounded. We are a very great people. . . We all of us felt six inches taller than before. We spread our tails like peacocks in the sun, and were as pleased as children at our soap-bubble, iridescent with many hues. But all of a sudden this beautiful vision melted away; the Egyptian mirage evaporated, the great political phantasmagoria faded like a dissolving view.-Sir William Harcourt.1

The utterances of Lord Derby on foreign policy never content us ... because he seems to us always to underrate, or even despise, the first duty of an English Minister-that of carrying the nation with his policy. A Minister who never utters his real thoughts, who keeps his plans to himself, and who treats every step in his policy as an unimportant detail, fails to enlist the nation in its favour, and lacks the immense support which a democracy, once aroused, can lend. [What is the end of Lord

tinuously, but when the period to which the profits are deferred on the 176,000 shares is taken into account-about thirteen years-then it may be said to be relatively about £27 a share more than in 1875, and consequently there may be said to have accrued £4,750,000 gain on the purchase of the shares. (Opposition cheers.)

1 At Oxford, Dec. 30, 1875.

Derby's explanation?] The Pall Mall Gazette, which, throughout the Egyptian affair, has been in favour of decision and energy, replies that Lord Derby speaks ex officio; that, as Foreign Secretary, he is bound to be most cautious in statement, and that, in fact, he is hoodwinking possible adversaries. [But nobody is hoodwinked except the English people.] Russia will not believe the commercial enterprise story for a dozen Lord Derbys: France will not believe it: the world generally will not believe it. . . . We very much doubt, if the purchase of the shares is an isolated act, whether it is a defensible one. The Government as a mere shareholder is in a false position. . . . How is it possible for anybody, Tory or Liberal, to be energetic in defence of such a policy as that?-Spec. Dec. 25th.

Lord Derby may say as much as he pleases that it is neither wise nor honest to wish to establish a protectorate over Egypt; but in reality the possession of a moral, but not the less effective, political ascendency in Egypt, and in reference to the Canal, is a cardinal point in English foreign policy essential to the security of our Eastern interests.-Blackwood, Jan. 1876.

If the purchase of the shares is an act of no immediate importance in itself the case is quite different when we think of the effect it may have in Europe. . . . Its reception by the public is taken to prove, in spite of all the words of Lord Derby, that England is ready in certain contingencies to seize Egypt.-Fort. Rev. Jan. 1876.1

It is from Lord Derby's Edinburgh speech that we date the commencement of a belief in two sections in the Cabinet, a Disraeli section and a Derby section. According to this belief the former is audacious and active, the latter cautious and minimising. If the former startles and excites Public Opinion, the latter makes it its mission to soothe and tranquillise it.

I am raising, says Mr. Disraeli, an action of ejectment as reversionary claimant of that great property. "Oh dear no!" says Lord Derby, we are only going to maintain an old right of way." -Spec. Feb. 26th, 1876.

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Although the general attitude of Public Opinion towards the action of the Government had been one of approval, certain undertones of criticism had made themselves heard even from the first. The Opposition, as in duty bound, began cautiously to approach the new phenomenon, and to search out its vulnerable points. The fact that Parliament had not been consulted was at once remarked upon.2 Complaints were often made about the 1 "Home and Foreign Affairs."

2 The London correspondent of the South Wales Daily News (Dec. 21) mentions a rumour that orders had actually been given to prepare the Houses for an Autumn Session in case of adverse opinion on the purchase.

unsettlement of the stock markets, caused by the action and rumoured future action of our Government. But it is worth remarking that from first to last not a syllable was breathed in England, in any quarter deserving of the slightest consideration, to insinuate that Ministers had ever been tempted to make any profit on their own account out of the immensely valuable secrets and influence in their possession.

The Economist recommends its readers to suspend their judgment on this remarkable step.-(Nov. 27th.)

Lord Sandhurst (one of the earliest critics in the field) advised that the shares should no longer be held by the State, but sold. We should be relieved from a mischievous anomaly, and an unprecedented arrangement in the application of the State resources.-(In 7. Dec. 3rd.)

Mr. Fawcett was very anxious in what was now said about it not to prejudice the question. In his opinion, the public was not yet sufficiently informed to form a correct estimate of the wisdom or the policy of the purchase of those Canal shares. They did not know what effect it would have on the policies of Europe, or in what way it would be received by the great Powers. He was bound to say that even if a small portion of the consequences which some of its most enthusiastic admirers attributed to it were likely to result from it, he should look upon the proceeding with grave misgiving. Before the transaction had been announced twenty-four hours, the glittering prospect was held out to them of interfering and meddling in the affairs of Egypt, and a protectorate and a suzerainty were talked about. It would be unjust to the Government for a moment to suppose that they meant anything of that kind until they had heard their explanation. But for many reasons Parliament ought to assemble as soon as possible. They must never lose sight of the fact that the very moment a single shilling of their money was spent without the consent of their representatives, the constitution was for a time suspended, and it could only be restored by asking the House of Commons to give the Government a bill of indemnity. He hoped when the matter came on for discussion in the House it would be treated without party bias.-At Hackney, Nov. 30th. Lord Hartington touched on the subject, but reserved full criticism, as "he had not had the opportunity of consulting his political friends." However, he remarked that

Up to this day no information has been given to us by the Government.... But, gentlemen, despatches have been published in France [from which we learn the view Lord Derby wishes the

1 See Granville's and Hartington's speeches, Debates on the Address in both Houses, Feb. 8th, 1876.