The Colonial Secretary's general attitude upon these matters may be illustrated from a correspondence which passed between him and Sir Charles in the autumn of this year. Replying to criticisms concerning the Australian Colonies, Lord Derby
'somewhat sneeringly observed that in order to keep out foreign convicts "it is not necessary that they should annex every island within a thousand miles of their coast. They cannot have at once the protection of British connection and the pleasures of a wholly independent foreign policy."'
On this Sir Charles comments:
'Lord Derby had lost all credit with the Conservative party about the time of his resignation of the Secretaryship of State for Foreign Affairs in the Conservative Administration. But he had retained considerable weight with Liberals. During his tenure of the Secretaryship of State for the Colonies in Mr. Gladstone's Administration, he lost his credit with the Liberals as well, and his influence reached a position of decline which makes it difficult even to remember the enormous weight he had possessed in the earliest part of his political career. For many years Lord Derby was the ideal spokesman of the middle man not fiercely attached to either party. Going over this diary in 1900, it is a curious reflection that the immense weight gained by Sir Edward Grey in the period between 1890 and 1900 was similar to that which Lord Derby had enjoyed at the earlier period. Each of them in his time appeared to express, though far from old, the lifelong judgment of a Nestor. Each of them extorted from the hearer or reader the feeling: "What this man says is unanswerable. It is the dispassionate utterance of one who knows everything, and has thought it out in the simplest but the most convincing form." Lord Derby could sum up a discussion better, probably, than anyone has ever done, unless it is Sir Edward Grey. Sir Edward Grey's summing up of a discussion on a difficult problem, such as that presented by the Chinese question, 1897-1900, was better than was to be expected from anyone else, unless it had been the Lord Stanley of, say, thirty-five years before.'
On May 27th
'I dined at Marlborough House at a dinner to meet a little tin soldier cousin in white epaulettes, who was over from Germany … and (the German Ambassador) Count Münster told me that the French had hoisted their flag on a reef, as he said, within cannon-shot of Jersey, as to the British or neutral nature of which there had long been a dispute between the two Governments.' [Footnote: The Memoir has a note upon this episode of the Ecréhous Books, which led to the publication of Parliamentary papers in June of that year:
'The rocks were not within three miles of the coast of Jersey at low- water mark, and this was the limit of the reservation of the Jersey oyster fishery, and it was upon this fact that the French went. It afterwards appeared that the French flag never had been hoisted on the rocks, but only on a boat which came thither for the purpose of fishing, so that the whole matter was somewhat of a storm in a teacup. It raised, however, another question. The Convention of 1839, which defined the limits of the oyster fishery between Jersey and France, also defined the limits of the exclusive French rights of fishery on all other parts of the coast of the British islands; and some day an Irish Parliament may find interest in Sir Edward Hertslet's "Memorandum as to the French right of fishery upon the coast of Ireland, printed for the Foreign Office on the 5th June, 1883."']
'On May 28th there was a Levee, at which d'Aunay, of the French Embassy, told me that the act of the fishermen at Ecréhous was disavowed by France. "But," he added, "there is perhaps some Challemel in it," an admission which rather weakened the other statement, and it again struck me that it was a pity we had been so rude to Challemel when he was Ambassador.'
Relations with France were going from bad to worse. Not only were they strained by the breach of 1882 over Egypt, but French colonizing aspirations had created trouble in Madagascar. The understanding between the two Great Powers that an "identic attitude" in regard to the Hova people was to be maintained was broken down by France, which under various pretexts intervened by force in Madagascar, claiming a protectorate over certain narrow strips of territory on the north-west coast. This claim was denounced by Lord Granville. Yet 'on October 27th, 1882, there was a dinner at Lord Granville's, at which I met Hartington, Kimberley, and Northbrook.' This meeting of the heads of the military and foreign services discussed the affairs of the Congo, and also Madagascar; 'it was decided against my strong opposition to put no difficulties in the way of the French. 'At this time the growing tension was disagreeably felt, and Sir Charles learnt a month later that the Cabinet of November 28th, 1882, 'had been much frightened at the prospect of trouble with France.'
At this time an Embassy from Madagascar was in Paris to protest against the oppressive policy pursued. An ultimatum was presented which left the envoys no option but to depart, and they came with their bitter complaint to London, where Sir Charles Dilke very warmly espoused their cause: