The Earl of Derby to the Marquis of Salisbury and Sir H. Elliot.
“Foreign Office,xxx
xxx“10th January 1877.
“My Lord and Sir,—Odian Effendi called upon me this afternoon by appointment, and spoke to me again of the impossibility which his Government felt of accepting the proposals made to them in the Conference.
“There might, he said, be concessions on both sides in regard to the reforms, but the question of the guarantees would still remain, and offered insuperable difficulties.
“Under these circumstances he was anxious to make a personal suggestion, which he thought might offer a mode of arrangement, and which he understood that Midhat Pasha was ready to adopt. It was that the Constitution recently decreed by the Sultan should be brought to the cognizance of the Powers in a form which should make its execution a matter of international obligation between the Porte and them, and that the organisation of the provincial administrations to be drawn up by the Turkish Ministers should, after receiving the approval of the Powers, be made a portion of the general plan, and embodied in the same agreement.
“The whole system of reforms granted by the Sultan to his subjects would thus be placed under the guarantee of the Powers, who would have a right to watch over the manner in which it was carried out.
“Odian Effendi wished to know whether this proposal would be favourably received by Her Majesty’s Government, and whether I thought there would be any use in the Porte bringing it forward in the Conference.
“I told Odian Effendi in reply that there was a manifest inconvenience in discussing here the questions which at the same time were in process of negotiation at Constantinople. I must therefore refrain from expressing an opinion upon the plan which he had mentioned to me.
“If it was to be proposed by the Turkish Government, this must be done by them at Constantinople, and upon their own responsibility.[17]
“I am, etc.,