March 6, 1879.
It is better always to get the credit of one's good actions, which are naturally few. Will you kindly tell M. Waddington in the most unofficial way in the world that——having returned himself as 67 years of age (he entered the service 55 years ago, and therefore must have begun his public labours at a precocious age) we have suppressed the Consulate General of Tunis, and that there will henceforth be a man on reduced salary, a consul or agent, after the close of this month.
I think the French will find difficulties enough with Italy if they ever try to increase their influence in Tunis; but that is no affair of ours. We have hot water enough elsewhere without desiring to boil any in Tunis.
One good turn deserves another, and I hope Waddington will feel himself bound to keep his agents from Anglophobia in Turkey.
The Egyptian compromise will do very well for the time. It seems doubtful whether Nubar is worth anything now. An Oriental does not easily pluck up a spirit when he has once been beaten, and Nubar is reported to have told friends in England that he knew that whenever the Khedive had done with him there was a cup of coffee waiting for him.
The compromise referred to took the form of a new Egyptian Ministry containing the two English and French representatives, and nominally presided over by the Khedive's eldest son, Prince Tewfik. The experiment, however, of trying to keep a Ministry in office in spite of the opposition of the chief of the State did not last long, for in April the irrepressible Khedive dismissed his Ministers and installed Cherif Pasha as Prime Minister. This spirited action caused M. Waddington much perplexity, as he did not believe that French public opinion would allow him to take a slap in the face quietly from the Khedive. The French bondholders were too influential to think of throwing them over, and then there was the Crédit Foncier, a more or less Government establishment, which no French Government could allow to come to grief. There was a keen desire to maintain the concert between England and France on Egyptian affairs, but if the bondholders suspected that England was likely to be lukewarm on their behalf, there was a strong probability that the French Government might be forced to act alone in the enforcement of French claims. Lord Salisbury on his side was naturally reluctant to be identified with the bondholders' cause.
Lord Salisbury to Lord Lyons.
April 10, 1879.
I see by your telegrams which have arrived to-day that M. Waddington suggests as a means of coercion against the Khedive that MM. Rothschild should refuse to pay him the balance of the loan. Mr. Rivers Wilson had made the same suggestion to the Baron. But the latter, in a message sent yesterday through his son, repudiated any idea of such a proceeding as dishonourable, and attributed the suggestion to momentary excitement.
With respect to the second idea, the only question is whether the Sultan will ever summon up courage to take such a step, and if he does, whether he can enforce it. If it can be done quite smoothly, perhaps it would be the best course; but I speak with some doubt.
It may be quite tolerable and even agreeable to the French Government to go into partnership with the bondholders; or rather to act as sheriffs' officer for them. But to us it is a new and very embarrassing sensation. Egypt never can prosper so long as some 25 per cent. of her revenue goes in paying interest on her debt. We have no wish to part company with France: still less do we mean that France should acquire in Egypt any special ascendency; but subject to these two considerations I should be glad to be free of the companionship of the bondholders.
M. Waddington's 'second idea' evidently referred to the deposing of the Khedive by means of the Sultan; but his difficulty lay in the old French jealousy of the Porte exercising influence over the internal affairs of Egypt, and during the reign of Sultan Abdul Aziz the consequence of that influence had certainly been a constant drain of money from Cairo to Constantinople. One suggestion was that the Sultan should summon the Khedive to come to Constantinople to do homage, a ceremony which he had never yet performed, and a refusal to obey would have made him a rebel in the Sultan's eyes; but the objection to this course was that the Khedive might, if he went, take large sums of money with him and so propitiate his suzerain.