Lord Salisbury to Lord Lyons.
April 16, 1879.
Waddington's policy is not very intelligible. I suppose it is a compromise between a sense of the danger of doing anything strong, and of the necessity of satisfying the Crédit Foncier. In the despatch which you will receive we have done our best to accommodate ourselves to Waddington's view, without taking up a wholly untenable position.
There is one thing which it is necessary not to forget, though I could not mention it in the despatch. We have very different audiences to please; and though we may agree upon the actual intimation to be given to the Khedive and the Sultan respectively, the argument leading up to those communications cannot in both cases be precisely the same. We must lay stress on separate points, and the argument derived from the Khedive's application for a European Minister must be treated differently by the two Powers, as the circumstances were not similar. We should therefore avoid identic notes, though we may make a concerted representation.
The communication to the Porte had better be indiscreetly communicated to the Khedive's agent there, who is an intelligent man. It may only result in producing a very heavy payment to the Porte. But that, under existing circumstances, will itself be of advantage.
I suppose that Waddington means to upset the Ottoman Bank project as a retort for the failure of Tocqueville's.
What does he think of Martino's share in the recent Egyptian crisis? Italy is likely to be a plague to all of us.
In France there was a violent party, more or less supported by Gambetta, which desired to send some energetic Agent to Egypt who would bully the Khedive successfully. Unfortunately, such energetic agents were extremely likely to quarrel with their British colleagues, whereas M. Waddington, who was peaceably disposed, wished to appoint quiet and unobtrusive representatives who would work harmoniously, and implicitly follow their instructions. There was, however, some excuse for the men of action, as a very well-founded suspicion prevailed in Paris that the Russians, and even the Germans, were busy at Rome inciting the Italians to make trouble for England and France at Cairo. Moreover, Gambetta and his friends believed, probably with reason, that the Khedive would never have gone so far in defying England and France if he had not felt that he was backed up by other Powers, as well as by Italy.
Mr. Vivian, the British agent in Cairo, who had been summoned to London, returned to his post at the end of April bearing a note, the gist of which was, that the two Governments, in view of the iniquities of the Khedive, 'reserved to themselves an entire liberty of appreciation and action in defending their interests in Egypt, and in seeking the arrangements best calculated to secure the good government and prosperity of the country.' In other words, the Khedive was warned that he had better be careful; but there was, so far, no hint of deposition.
In Lord Salisbury's letter to Lord Lyons, enclosing a copy of the above note, there is an interesting personal opinion on the question of governing Orientals by Europeans. 'With all these Oriental populations I suspect that the rôle of Europeans should in the main be confined to positions of criticism and control. They can only govern after absolute conquest, and then expensively. The difficulty of governing without conquest is, of course, enormously increased when two nationalities have to be provided for, and two Governments to be consulted.'
The period following the return of Mr. Vivian to his post was marked by a violent and entirely unreasonable campaign against England in the French press, it being thought, for some unknown reason, that France had been abandoned, and M. Waddington took the somewhat unusual course of sending a message to Lord Salisbury through Mr. Rivers Wilson, instead of communicating in the ordinary manner.