Lord Granville to Lord Lyons.
Trentham, June 4, 1884.
Many thanks for your important and pregnant letter. I quite agree that the relations between England and France will be disagreeable if the House of Commons rejects our proposals; but this, though possible, is not so probable as Hartington thinks.
The M.P.'s neither desire a Salisbury administration; still less a dissolution.
But how will our relations be, if we previously break off with France? and what can you suggest for the settlement of the financial difficulties of Egypt, if we obtain no sanction for a change of the Law of Liquidation?
Do you think that the House of Commons would allow us to take the whole debt upon ourselves, in order to save the bondholders? I should be really grateful for your suggestions on this last point.
From the above letter it is plain that Her Majesty's Government had no definite Egyptian policy, and were merely stumbling along concerned only, as frequently happens with British Cabinets, with the possible result of a division in the House of Commons. The only evidence of policy was a strong inclination to evade responsibility; to hand it over to a collection of Powers; and to fritter away such advantages as had been so hardly won, in the hopeless attempt to recover the goodwill of the French Government.
Lord Lyons's reply was to the effect that nothing would have a worse effect than a bitter debate in the House of Commons followed by the censure of terms agreed upon by the French and English Governments. But as there was no doubt whatever that the French Government intended to take advantage of the Conference to place France in the same position in Egypt as that which she formerly held, a firm policy on the part of Her Majesty's Government might have a better effect than an over-yielding one.
The Egyptian Conference met in London at the end of June and continued its sterile discussions for upwards of a month before finally breaking up, while the tone of the French press grew more and more hostile, and anything in the nature of a concession on the subject of the interest of the debt or on any other matter affecting French material interest was denounced in the fiercest terms. Even the craven British proposals with regard to the limitation of the military occupation were treated with contempt, and no person came in for greater abuse than M. Waddington, who was now established as Ambassador in London, and was constantly denounced for subservience to England, solely because he owned an English name.
The Conference broke up in August, and the Cabinet, which was now being continually denounced on all sides for its feeble and procrastinating policy, decided upon despatching Lord Northbrook on a special mission to Cairo. Before Lord Northbrook started he had a long interview with Lord Lyons, who did his best to impress upon him the views, interests, and susceptibilities of France, and the great importance of not running counter to them if possible.