Dalmeny, Aug. 10, 1886.
As my Foreign Office episode is at an end, I write a line of good-bye, not as a Minister, but on the footing of what I hope I may call friendship.
My six months' experience has led me to the conviction that our relations with France are really more troublesome than with any other Power. She is always wanting something of us which it is impossible to give her, and she then says plaintively, 'You never do anything for me.' She is quite oblivious of the fact that she never loses the opportunity of playing us a trick. Witness the secret expedition to the New Hebrides. Nothing would have induced me to go on with any one of the negotiations with Waddington until they had removed their troops from those islands. Whenever he asked for an answer about anything, I always turned the conversation round to that interesting spot.
With this conviction, therefore, it has been a great comfort to feel that you were at Paris.
I am not surprised that you did not care about my succession! It is a weary post.
Lord Lyons to Lord Rosebery.
Heron's Ghyll, Uckfield, Aug. 17, 1886.
Your friendly letter has followed me here and has much gratified me.
I think you must look back with great satisfaction to your time at the Foreign Office. You have certainly won golden opinions from your subordinates and from the world at large, which is perhaps a less competent judge. My own official intercourse with you was certainly both very pleasant to me and very satisfactory.
I attribute the difficulties with France more to the inevitable consequences of our coming into contact with the French in all parts of the world, than to any ill-will on either side, although I do not pretend to say that the state of feeling is what I could wish it to be.
Independently of any other considerations, I felt altogether too old to undertake the Foreign Office. I was so convinced of this, that I regarded it as what the French call an objection préjudicielle to entertaining the question at all.
The post which Lord Lyons had declined was accepted by Lord Iddesleigh, who had just been removed from the House of Commons, and, as was only natural, it is evident that he was in the habit of consulting Lord Salisbury before taking any step of importance. In October, 1886, with the concurrence of Lord Salisbury, Lord Lyons was instructed to approach the French Government on the question of Egypt, and to explain the conditions under which it would be possible to terminate the British military occupation. There seems to be absolutely no doubt that Her Majesty's Government were perfectly sincere and honestly desirous of carrying out the promises that had been made at various times, and as subsequent history showed, it was the misguided opposition of France and Russia which was as much responsible as anything else for the permanent British occupation of Egypt.
Lord Lyons to Lord Iddesleigh.
Paris, Oct. 22, 1886.