LORD DERBY'S DECLARATIONS.
Y far the most satisfactory circumstance in all the recent proceedings of the Government is the definiteness and persistency with which Lord Derby has kept the Turkish Government informed of the determination of this country to lend them no assistance. There may have been dangerous or delusive telegrams from London, private letters may have inspired hope in the Turks, and misinterpreted rumours may have induced the Sultan to send and recall, recall and send, his Envoys to Kezanlik, but the tone of the despatches from the Foreign Office has never varied. The Turks have always been told that they had no official aid to expect from Downing Street. Naturally, hearing what they do of English divisions, they are hard of belief, and Server Pasha, the Foreign Minister of the Porte, tries with persistent cunning to place this country in the position of mediator, but he is met by Lord Derby with equally persistent rebukes. On 21st December, for example, Musurus Pasha sounded Lord Derby repeatedly as to the probabilities of English intervention, and in men- tioning the conversation to Mr. Layard, Lord Derby writes :— " As his Excellency referred more than once to the possi- bility of English intervention, I thought it right to repeat the warning which I had frequently before given,—namely, that no such intervention was to be expected, but that her Majesty's Government would adhere to the conditions of neutrality which they had laid down." On the 26th December, the Turkish Government asked for "mediation," but Lord Derby only consented to transmit to Russia a statement that the Porte desired peace, and on being further pressed by Musurus Pasha, he wrote to Mr. Layard, on January 7, the following most important and unmistakable despatch :—" I told his Excellency that this [a previous agreement between Russia and England as to the bases of peace] was impossible, as I felt sure that no such proposal addressed to the Russian Government would meet with a favourable reply, and it was useless to take a step which we knew beforehand could have no result. I pointed out, further, that it was not the fact that England had accepted the position of a mediator in the quarrel. Her Majesty's Government, I said, had simply offered to inquire whether the Emperor of Russia would entertain overtures for peace. In the course of some further conversation that passed between us, I took occasion to remind the Turkish Ambassador that our language had never varied, from the beginning of the war to the present time. Her Majesty's Government had declared their intention of maintaining neu- trality except under certain conditions, which we had clearly defined, and in regard to which we believed British interests to be concerned. I thought it right, I said, once more to re- peat this warning, which I had given very often before, in order that no false hopes might be raised."
Lord Derby seems to have been annoyed by the Russian delay in giving powers to the Generals to grant an armistice, a delay due to the necessity of sending the orders from St. Petersburg by messenger, and not by telegraph, as they were too grave ti be entrusted to wires passing out of Russian territory ; but nevertheless, he writes once more to Mr. Layard :— "The Turkish Ambassador called upon me this afternoon, to speak to me on the situation in which the sultan found him- self, and asked me whether her Majesty's Government could do nothing further to assist the Porte in its present difficulties. I said that I feared not ; that as I had told him from the beginning, we were not prepared to give military assistance to Turkey; and that as the Russian Government seemed deter- mined to repel all offers of mediation at the present moment, it was of no avail to attempt them. Musurus Pasha then alluded to the intimation received from the Grand Duke Nicholas that no armistice could be concluded without an understanding as to the bases of peace, and asked what course I thought the Porte should take with regard to it. I told his Excellency that as an armistice seemed to be of vital import- ance to Turkey, I could see no harm in the Porte ascertaining what was the nature of the conditions which the Russian Government were likely to demand." How, in the face of these declarations, so clear, so specific, and so repeated, it is possible for Turkey still to hope for British assistance it is nearly impossible to understand ; but that that she does hope it is certain, and there is but one con- ceivable explanation. Musurus Pasha believes Lord Beacons- field and the War party stronger than they are, and imagines that they may yet take advantage of some such contingency as is alluded to in the Queen's Speech to assist Turkey. That belief is natural, and is the only one which explains in the least the persistent confidence of the Turks that at some point or other in the struggle they will be assisted by arms. That illusion is not, however, the fault of the British people, which is not bound by any ideas of Musurus Pasha, or any extra-official assurances, but solely by the regular de- spatches of the Foreign Office, which Mr. Layard, whether he is Turkophile or no, must in due course have communicated to the Porte. Indeed, we may go further, and say that the country is so bound by Lord Derby's emphatic language, that unless Russia violates one of his three conditions, and threatens Egypt, or annexes Constantinople, or without the consent of Europe, claims for herself a sole right of passing the Dardanelles, war for Turkey, or war in any form which would benefit Turkey, would be a breach of faith. We cannot see a road of escape from this proposition, which we understand to be accepted as correct by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, or imagine how, after these assurances, it is possible honourably to argue that England ought to go to war, either for Turkey, or "interests" other than those so carefully and repeatedly specified. Of course. if Russia is insane enough to annex Constantinople, or demand that the Black Sea shall become a mare clausum for everybody except herself, or to threaten the Suez Can al, grounds of war would be established ; but where is there the faintest evidence that Russia will do anything of the kind, or where the necessity for "precautions " against events so completely contrary to the interests of the only Power which can endeavour to create them ? One thing, at all events, is certain,—Lord Derby, whose illness at this juncture is a grave misfortune, cannot, after declarations so positive and so easily understood, support a policy leading, however distantly, to war.
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