Hence the Governments of Great Britain and of France are entirely agreed upon the object towards which their policy should be directed. The only difference existing between the two Governments is a difference of opinion concerning the means regarded as most advisable to obtain this common end. On this point, as the French Memorandum observes, a difference of opinion may naturally be expected.
On this point a great difference of opinion has arisen between the two Governments, which seems to have become stronger and more pronounced in proportion as the two Governments have more completely explained their respective views, and this fact for the moment prevents the two Governments from acting in concert to attain their common purpose. On the one hand, Her Majesty's Government has repeatedly pointed out her opinion that it would be impossible to maintain the integrity of the Turkish Empire and to preserve the independence of the Sultan, if Mehemet Ali were to be left in possession of Syria, as the military key of Asiatic Turkey, and that if Mehemet Ali were to continue to occupy this province as well as Egypt, he would be able at any time to threaten Bagdad from the south, Diarbekir and Erzeroum from the east, Koniah, Brousse, and Constantinople from the north; and that the same ambitious spirit which has driven Mehemet Ali under other conditions to revolt against his Sovereign, would soon induce him hereafter to take up arms for further invasions; and that for this purpose he would always maintain a large army on foot; that the Sultan, on the other hand, would be continually on guard against the possible danger, and would also be obliged to remain under arms, so that the Sultan and Mehemet Ali would continue to maintain arms upon a war footing for the purpose of observing one another; that a collision would be the inevitable result of these continual suspicions and mutual alarms, and that even if there should be no premeditated aggression upon either side, any collision of the sort would necessarily lead to foreign intervention in the Turkish Empire, while such intervention, thus provoked, would produce the most serious discord between the Powers of Europe.
Her Majesty's Government has pointed out as probable, if not as certain, an even greater danger than this, which would result from the continued occupation of Syria by Mehemet Ali; namely, that the Pasha, trusting to military force and wearied by his political position as a subject, would carry out an intention which he has frankly avowed to the Powers of Europe that he would never abandon, and would declare himself independent. Such a declaration upon his part would incontestably amount to a dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire, and, what is more, this dismemberment might happen under such conditions as would make it more difficult for the European Powers to act in concert for the purpose of forcing the Pasha to withdraw such a declaration, and more difficult than it is for them to-day to combine their forces and oblige him to evacuate Syria.
Her Majesty's Government has therefore invariably asserted that the Powers which are anxious to preserve the integrity of the Turkish Empire and to maintain the independence of the Sultan should unite in helping the latter to re-establish his direct authority over Syria.
The French Government, on the other hand, has asserted that if Mehemet Ali were once assured of the permanent occupation of Egypt and Syria he would remain a faithful subject and become the strongest support of the Sultan; that the Sultan could not govern if the Pasha were not in possession of this province, the military and financial resources of which would then be of greater use to him than if they were in the hands of the Sultan himself; that every confidence might be placed in the sincerity with which Mehemet Ali had renounced all ulterior views, and in his protestations of faithful devotion to his Sovereign; that the Pasha is an old man, and upon his death, even if his rights are recognised as hereditary, the totality of his acquired power would revert to the Sultan, because all possessions in Mohammedan countries, of whatever nature, are in reality held only upon tenure for lifetime.
The French Government has also maintained that Mehemet Ali will never be willing to evacuate Syria of his own accord and that the only means by which European Powers could use force would be operations by sea which would be inadequate, or by land which would be dangerous; that these operations by sea would not expel the Egyptians from Syria and would merely rouse Mehemet Ali to begin an attack upon Constantinople; while the measures which might be taken in such a case to defend the capital and in particular any operations on land undertaken by the troops of the allied Powers to expel the army of Mehemet Ali from Syria, would be more fatal to the Turkish Empire than the state of things could possibly be which these measures would be intended to remedy.
To these objections Her Majesty's Government replied that no reliance could be placed upon the recent protestations of Mehemet Ali; that his ambition is insatiable and would only be increased by success; and that to provide him with the opportunity of invading, or to leave within his reach the objects of his desire would be to sow the seeds of inevitable collisions; that Syria is no further from Constantinople than a large number of well-administered provinces are from their capitals in other States and can be as well governed from Constantinople as from Alexandria; that it is impossible for the resources of this province to be of any use to the Sultan in the hands of a governor who might turn them against his master at any moment and that they would be more useful if they were in the hands or at the disposal of the Sultan himself; that, as Ibrahim had an army at his orders, he had also the means, upon the decease of Mehemet Ali, of securing his own succession to any power of which the latter might be possessed at his death; that it was not fit that the Great Powers should advise the Sultan to conclude a public arrangement with Mehemet Ali, with the secret intention of hereafter breaking the arrangement upon the first occasion that might seem opportune.
None the less the French Government maintained its opinion and refused to take part in an arrangement which included the use of coercive measures.
But the French Memorandum laid down that in the course of recent circumstances no positive proposal has been made to France upon which she was called to explain her attitude and that consequently the resolution which England communicated to her in the Memorandum of July 17, doubtless in the name of the four Powers, must not be considered as actuated by refusals which France has not made. This passage obliges me briefly to remind you of the general course of negotiations.
The original opinion conceived by Her Majesty's Government, of which the five Powers were informed, including France, in 1839, was that the arrangement between the Sultan and Mehemet Ali which might secure a permanent state of peace in the Levant, would be of a nature to confine the power delegated to Mehemet Ali to Egypt alone and would re-establish the direct authority of the Sultan throughout Syria, both in Candia and in all the towns of the Holy Land; thus interposing the desert between the direct power of the Sultan and the province of which the administration would be left to the Pasha. And Her Majesty's Government proposed that by way of compensation for the evacuation of Syria, Mehemet Ali should receive an assurance that his male descendants should succeed him as governors in Egypt, under the sovereignty of the Sultan.