disadvantage he had been subjected to in not being earlier able to unbosom himself.

Lord Derby was glad to see Mr. Bright and his friends because he wished to learn what they had to say; he must have been more glad to see them because it gave him an opportunity of letting the world know what he had to say. For weeks past he and his policy have been perverted and misrepresented by those who affected to be his most devoted friends and admirers. He has had the mortification, than which nothing can be more galling to a man of honour, of receiving credit for conduct which he repudiates, as being praised for motives of policy totally alien from his mind and his purpose. This misconstruction of his aims has not been confined poor creatures" whose lucubrations men of sense like Mr. Disraeli " never read;" it has extended thoughout Europe, and worst of all, has been accepted in Turkey as indisputable. . . . We can understand how Lord Derby must have fretted when he found that he was believed in every Continental Court to have thrown down the gauntlet to Russia by sending the fleet to Besika Bay. -T. July 17th.

to the "

At the same time Lord Derby's reference to "his employers" could not but tend to confirm Public Opinion in its impression of its own right to be obeyed by Ministers, even though its behests should be conveyed otherwise than through the constitutional channel.1

Not long since, Lord Derby, speaking to a deputation, had informed them, and through them the country, that one of the greatest difficulties of a Government was that they were unable to know what were the intentions of their employers until it was too late. I do not know whether Lord Derby did not rather underrate the responsibility under which the Government acts. I should have thought it might sometimes have been the duty of the servants of the Queen to conduct the foreign policy of the country in a manner not altogether according to the instructions of those whom Lord Derby called their employers. But at the same time, there can be no doubt that it is of vast importance to the Government to feel that the policy they pursue is supported by the general feeling and sense of the country.-Marquis of Hartington, H. of C. July 31st.

1 The Quarterly Reviewer (Art. "The Crown and the Constitution," April, 1878, p. 325) says he always thought Lord Derby's reference to his employers was meant as a joke.

CHAPTER XI.

ATROCITY PERIOD. SUB-PERIOD-PUBLIC OPINION WAITING FOR

GUIDANCE.

§ 1. The Blue Books of July 1876.

THE calm which followed Lord Derby's declaration was but momentary. The fear of immediately impending war was sensibly alleviated, but there was a growing wish that England should help on the emancipation of the Provincials, rather than hinder it, and a perception that hitherto notwithstanding all disclaimers of hostility to the subject populations, practically, the action of the English Government had been to hinder, and not to help, their efforts.

The long-expected Blue Book was published on July 21st.1 It now appeared that Lord Derby regarded the attainment by the unaided efforts of the revolted Provinces of a position for themselves similar to that of Servia or Roumania on the one hand, or a grant of insufficient and unreal liberties like those of Crete on the other, as the limits of the settlement to be come to, when either success had declared itself for the insurgents, or the Porte had succeeded in reestablishing its authority, as the case might be. At the same time these papers showed that the English Government, as represented by Lord Derby, had been extremely hostile to any attempt on the part of the subject populations themselves or on the part of their friends, to achieve their emancipation. He alleged the sympathy generally felt in Russia for the insurgent population of Turkey as accounting for the general distrust felt in England as to the designs of the Czar, a distrust of which the Russian ambassador spoke with regret.2

1 Turkey, iii. 1876. See T. July 22nd. Compare Argyll, chap. iv. and Spec. July 29th, for criticisms of the policy developed.

2 Ibid. No. 427.

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It is true the same unfriendly bearing towards the insurgents had marked the papers issued earlier in the session, but it had passed almost unnoticed, put out of sight, perhaps, by the concurrence of the English Government in the Andrassy Note. Now, however, this hostile attitude attracted attention, and elicited unfavourable comment.

It will startle some readers of the papers presented to Parliament to see the sort of surprise and indignation with which Lord Derby, the British ambassador at Constantinople, and most of the British consuls (though most notably Mr. Holmes) for months treat the omission to starve the insurrection as an offence combining the worst features of political and even moral guilt.— Fort. Rev. Sept. 1876.1

Lord Derby holds towards the Christians in European Turkey the position which his father held towards the Italians and ocean steamers, an attitude of disbelief, prompted by inner distaste for the innovation. Let us hope that his judgment will prove equally erroneous.-Spec. July 29th, 1876.

The relations between the Porte and the insurgents were treated by Lord Derby as a matter with respect to which the Powers might possibly mediate when success should have declared itself on one side or the other, but which primarily must depend on the question whether the insurgents unaided should prove themselves able to extort from the Porte something beyond the mere administrative reform which the Porte might propose to grant.

Such were the explanations which Lord Derby had given to the Russian ambassador when (June 12th) Count Schouvaloff asked to be informed of the drift and object of the English policy.2

A few days afterwards (June 21st) the Russian ambassador urged that the Powers should not refrain from using their efforts to arrive at a practical solution till hostilities had resulted in some definite issue, and proposed the plan of "vassal and tributary autonomous States." Lord Derby spoke of this as a vague term,3 liable to be misunderstood, and informed Count Schouvaloff of the objection which he understood the Austrian Government entertained to any such proposal. For his own part, he saw no objection to a change which would give to Bosnia and Herzegovina a large measure of real freedom," but he doubted whether any concession of the kind would satisfy the insurgents then in arms.1

1 "Turkey in Europe," Albert Rutson. 2 Ibid. No. 427. 3 Ibid. No. 476. 4 It will be observed this despatch was written on June 29th, subsequently to the receipt of the first accounts of the atrocities in England.

Again, he wrote that he could not regard the insurrection as exclusively or principally directed against local oppression. The Roman Catholics had taken no part in the movement. The Christians who had not joined the insurgent bands had been unmolested.1 Numbers of inhabitants who had quitted their villages were deterred from returning by the action of the insurgents, not by fear of their Mahometan neighbours. In Lord Derby's opinion the insurrectionary movement must be suppressed and order restored, before schemes for better administration could be advantageously treated. He objected at that moment, and without close inquiry, to press projects of reform on the Porte going beyond those already promised. However, the English Government would willingly join other Powers in considering and advising such amelioration in the existing administration of the two provinces as they might believe practicable. If Servia were warned, in a tone which did not admit of misconstruction, that she must not expect protection from the consequences of defeat, and if the Turkish insurgent provinces were freed from the instigations to revolution due to foreign Slav committees and agitators, the work of pacification would be an easy task.2

It is a question whether Lord Derby in his devotion to Order, and his anxiety that the insurrectionary movement should never attain proportions capable of disturbing the repose of Europe, did not overshoot the limits of that technical non-intervention on which he insisted, when the question which he deemed most pressing was that of preventing other Powers from assisting the Provincials and thus enlarging the area of disturbance. It may fairly be surmised that the efforts of his diplomacy were directed to inspire Turkey with energy in dealing with the insurrection,3 and at all events, he did not scruple to press Austria and Russia to restrain both Servia and Montenegro.

When his object was to prevent Servia from coming to the aid of the wholly subject provinces, Lord Derby insisted that she ought not to be allowed to commit a breach of the public peace; but when subsequently it was to prevent Russia from coming to the aid of Servia, we find him glad to remember the vassalage of Servia, and to minimise the Servian war as an internal quarrel

1 Ibid. No. 502.

2 Ibid. No. 506.

3 See Turkey, ii. 1876, No. 13; Turkey, iii. 1876, No. 427; and compare Argyll, chap. iv.

in which the maxim of non-intervention forbade other Powers to concern themselves.

It may appear at first sight that at this crisis Lord Derby was making the maintenance of the technical maxim of nonintervention the chief aim of his policy. But in truth his mind seems to have been singularly free from technical scruples of this kind. He kept Legalism in his storehouse of arguments against breaking the peace for use in case of need, and for the benefit of persons who would attach weight to it. But Lord Derby himself must be regarded as the representative of Order, not of Legalism.

In the upshot the papers now made public went to show that while the English Government would not themselves forcibly interfere to prevent the Provincials from extorting their freedom from Turkey, they would strongly disapprove, if not resent, any attempt at forcible interference on the part of Russia in the contrary direction. Would such resentment carry the English Government to the length of interposition? Would they engage in war to assist Turkey to withstand any such interference? This was the point on which those who were fast coming to see that there was a problem which must be solved, and to believe that emancipation alone would solve it, were getting anxious to be reassured; and in the published papers they could find little that was reassuring.

§ 2. The Despatches of May 25th and Sept. 5th.

It will be convenient here to speak of two other despatches which were subsequently much quoted on one side or the other, as throwing light on the position and intentions of the Government during this period. On May 24th Lord Derby told the Turkish Ambassador that the Porte would be unwise to count on more than the moral support of England. He explains to Sir Henry Elliot, however, that he merely suggested this in conversation, and carefully avoided pledging Her Majesty's Government to any line cf policy.

It is a singular circumstance that although the conversation with the Turkish Ambassador was reported in the Blue Book laid before Parliament in July, no allusion to this "warning" was allowed to appear.

1 Turkey, iii. 1876, No. 295.