[313] Beaconsfield did not stop at this point. He made a treaty with Turkey, binding us to defend her possessions in Asia, and her to reform her system of government. The reforms were never carried out, and fifteen years later the Armenian massacres showed what Turkish promises were worth. One omission was made in these arrangements. Bismarck offered to support a British occupation of Egypt. Beaconsfield refused thus to impair the integrity of the Ottoman Empire, and took a worthless "lease" of the island of Cyprus instead. The sanction of Europe for our incursion into Egypt was thus lost.
[314] Lord Mayo, quoted in Hansard, III. ccxliii. 312. Lady Betty Balfour's Lord Lytton's Indian Administration is a very good account of the Viceroy's aims and methods. See also the Blue Book, Papers Relating to Afghanistan (1878).
[315] Balfour, 30.
[316] For the Parliamentary debates see Hansard, III. ccxliii. 245 (Lords), and 310 (Commons). Lord Lawrence's views were quoted from a dispatch of his (1869) at p. 311.
[317] Hansard, III. ccxliii. 349.
[318] Hansard, 380. Mr. Chamberlain's defence of the claim to criticize a war while it is in progress (p. 382) is the best possible comment on his treatment of Pro-Boers twenty years later.
[319] The best Liberal speeches are in Hansard, III. ccxliii., Lords Halifax (245), Lawrence (261), and Grey (406); Whitbread (310), Chamberlain (380), and Gladstone (541).
[320] The Midlothian Campaign (speeches in 1879 and 1880), 113.
[321] Ibid., 194.
[322] The Midlothian Campaign, 19.