VIEW ON THE SUEZ CANAL.
his Canal shares among the Powers. It was possible that at any moment Germany or France might buy them up, and then impede the passage of English troops to India. Not a day was to be lost, and Mr. Disraeli, therefore, on his own responsibility, and without consulting his Cabinet, purchased the Shares. There was joy in the City over this operation. The bankruptcy of Turkey, declared at the end of October, had converted Turkish Bonds into waste paper, and it was some compensation to speculators that Mr. Disraeli’s purchase of the Canal Shares sent up the price of Egyptian Stock by leaps and bounds. Lord Hartington, it is true, in a speech at Sheffield (15th of December), querulously carped at the transaction. But as his contention was that England was in a better position to secure the neutrality of the Canal without than with a solid proprietary interest in it, nobody paid the least attention to his unpatriotic cavillings. They merely convinced the country that, despite Mr. Disraeli’s bungling Parliamentary leadership, his inaccuracy of statement, his loose hold of principle, and the administrative blunders of his subordinates, he was the only living statesman of first rank, in whose hands the higher interests of the Empire were safe.
COUNT FERDINAND DE LESSEPS.
It was announced in March that the Prince of Wales was to visit India in November, with Sir Bartle Frere as his guide. In July it was decided that his tour should be a State Progress, the expenses of which should be paid for out of the revenues of England and India. The marine escort was to be provided by the Admiralty at a cost of £52,000; the Indian Treasury was to contribute £30,000; and when Mr. Disraeli asked the House of Commons for £52,000, Lord Hartington had no complaint to make except that he thought the vote ought to be larger. Messrs. Macdonald and Burt, when they objected that the working-classes would not approve of the grant, were literally “howled down” by the House. Yet all Mr. Burt said was that as he himself lived on a salary derived from his constituents, he could not decently vote away their money to pay the cost of what they believed was a tour of pleasure for a rich Prince. His argument was fair enough from his point of view. It was faulty because he failed to see that a vote for a State pageant which meant to individualise the Monarchy to the Indian mind, was not a grant to the Prince as a private individual. Mr. Bright’s support of the grant, which was voted, was useful to the Government. But as his argument was that the visit of the Prince might be serviceable in checking the harsh and cruel treatment to which the natives of India are subjected by their English rulers, it was condemned as unjust to the devoted servants of the Queen, who wear out their lives in honourable exile, maintaining peace in an Empire that, without them, would be converted into a pandemonium of slaughter.
The opening days of 1876 were marked by the announcement of Lord Northbrook’s resignation as Viceroy of India. The Indian Viceroy had for some time thwarted the policy of the Secretary of State, and the final rupture was made when they differed in opinion as to the kind of Envoy the Government should have at Cabul. It was a quaint controversy. Lord Salisbury said the face of the British Envoy should be white. Lord Northbrook contended that it should be black, whereupon Lord Salisbury wrote Lord Northbrook a despatch, couched in terms that left him no alternative save resignation. According to Lord Salisbury, unless a white Envoy kept watch over the Ameer, Shere Ali, our information from Cabul would be defective. According to Lord Northbrook, if we sent an European Envoy to Cabul, he would be promptly assassinated, in which case we should get no information at all, and India would be dragged into a ruinous war of vengeance. Lord Northbrook had nothing on his side but facts. No Afghan Ameer had ever been able to guarantee a Christian Envoy at Cabul against assassination. When Lord Salisbury did send an European Envoy to Cabul he was not only murdered, but, pending his inevitable murder, the only information worth having that came from Cabul, came from native sources. It was, moreover, a slight on the Indian Government to say that they had not been able to train a Mahommedan official of rank up to the duties of effective diplomatic espionage at Cabul. However, the dispute ended in Lord Northbrook coming back to England, and in Lord Lytton going out to India as his successor. There was no doubt a time when the appointment of a diplomatist who was a Peer and a passionate poet, to the Viceregal Throne might have been useful. Unhappily, in 1876, a different type of ruler was needed in India. The war cloud in Eastern Europe was about to break, and it was well known that in any diplomatic contest between Russia and England, it would be the aim of Russia to weaken England by making trouble for her on her Indian frontier. For the stress of the times, a man like Lord Mayo was necessary, and Lord Lytton was everything that Lord Mayo was not.
All through 1875 there had been in Bosnia and Herzegovina disturbances precisely similar to those in the Principalities which preceded the Crimean War. After Lord Derby had been appealed to by Musurus Pasha, the Turkish Ambassador in London, he suggested to Count Andrassy that Austria should prevent her subjects on her frontier from supporting the insurgents in the mutinous Turkish provinces, and a similar suggestion was made to the Servian Government. His advice to the Turks was to stamp out rebellion as quickly as possible, so as to prevent it from spreading and provoking European intervention. The Porte, instead of acting on this advice, desired that the Consuls of the Great Powers should mediate between the Sultan and the rebels, and Lord Derby, instead of adhering to his original counsels, weakly fell in with this proposal, and consented, though with great hesitancy, to let the British Consul join the delegation. The rebels were delighted with the proposals of the Consuls for their better government, but refused to lay down their arms unless the Powers guaranteed that the Turks would carry them out. The Consuls were pleased that the demands of the insurgents were moderate and reasonable, but could give no guarantees for the good faith of Turkey. As they were returning from their mission fighting began again.
From their public utterances during the recess of 1875 it was inferred that while Lord Derby was averse from further intervention on the part of England in the business, because in the East, he said, “we want nothing, and fear nothing,” Mr. Disraeli was of opinion that England had great interests in Eastern Europe, which the Government, he said at the Lord Mayor’s Banquet, “are resolved to guard and maintain.” There are no novelties in English politics. The situation was the same as that which led to the Crimean War, and it also had to be dealt with by a Cabinet which, like Lord Aberdeen’s, was divided into interventionists and non-interventionists. But an acute observer might have detected what Mr. Disraeli failed to see, that English opinion had changed since 1853. In 1853 the electors were in favour of intervention, whereas, since the defeat of Palmerston by the Court and Mr. Cobden in 1864, they had always been against it. As the insurrection spread, the Porte promised reforms. Three Powers—Austria, Germany and Russia, afterwards joined by France and Italy—sent a Note to Turkey known as “the Andrassy Note” (30th of December, 1875), condemning the misgovernment of the insurgent provinces, bewailing the broken promises of the Porte, and demanding certain reforms in Bosnia and Herzegovina to prevent a general rising. Lord Derby, after about a month’s hesitation, instructed the British Ambassador to give the Note a general support. Turkey accepted most of its proposals, and issued another Iradé to carry them out. The Iradé was never made operative, and though Lord Derby was not offended by the contumacy of Turkey, the other Powers resented it. Count Schouvaloff persuaded him to permit Lord Odo Russell to meet the representatives of the five Powers at Berlin in May to consider the situation. At this meeting the Berlin Memorandum was produced and agreed to by the Continental Powers.