It was all very well to say that the 'French cannot be allowed to seize Tunis,' but when a big European Power decides to pounce upon a weak and decaying Oriental State, it is not of the slightest use to employ such language if merely moral suasion is contemplated. The recent action of the Italian Government with regard to Tripoli[33] was the exact repetition of French action with regard to Tunis, and remonstrances were of no more avail in one case than in the other. The Bey sent piteous protests and appeals for justice to all the Great Powers, but as Italy, the only Power which really objected, was not prepared to fight, his lamentations fell upon deaf ears. Meanwhile, in an attempt to justify their bare-faced aggression, the French Government apparently handed to M. Blowitz, the Times correspondent at Paris, a despatch from Lord Salisbury written in 1878, which it had been agreed should be treated as confidential, and it was intimated in the press that further private and confidential communications would appear in a forthcoming Yellow Book. This produced a very justifiable remonstrance from Lord Salisbury.
Lord Salisbury to Lord Lyons.
Hatfield, April 24, 1881.
I am not sure that I am not irregular in addressing to you any communication on public affairs. But I think I have been told that a certain license is accorded to disembodied Foreign Secretaries, of haunting the scenes of their former misdeeds.
My cause of writing is this. My eye caught a statement in one or two English papers that St. Hilaire intended to print in the forthcoming Yellow Book, Waddington's first despatch to d'Harcourt on coming back from Berlin. I had a dim recollection that it was undiplomatically phrased and had been withdrawn: but I could remember no more.
Is it not rather a strong measure for a Government to withdraw a despatch to which objection is taken at the time, when it might be answered, and then to publish it three years later, when the materials for answering it no longer exist? However, perhaps I am wrong in assuming that the newspaper report is correct.
Lord Salisbury was quite correct in his recollection, and the intention of publishing the despatch referred to was not carried out, but various attempts were made to fix upon him the responsibility for French action in Tunis.
Lord Granville, although he confessed to disliking the process, had to content himself with ineffectual barking.
Lord Granville to Lord Lyons.
April 22, 1881.