On Monday Lord Granville drew attention to the Protocol, asked
why no guarantees were included in it, when the Govern- ment had admitted that guarantees were essential, and wanted
to know why Lord Derby had separated England from the other Powers by his declaration, whether it was with their approval or not, and if with their approval, why they did not join in it? Lord Derby replied that the reason no guarantees were proposed in the Protocol was that Turkey had refused them, and as she even resented the Protocol without the guarantees, it was not likely to have been made more palatable to her by the inclusion of guarantees. Lord Derby had not concealed his intention to make the British declaration from the other Powers, and he did not remember that any of them had disapproved it. His own account of the operative part of the Protocol, the famous "golden bridge,"—what it did and did not mean—is quite im- pressive, and well deserves to become historical :—" What was it that was promised in that paragraph of the Protocol, which some people have urged, but I think with signal ill-success, involved or implied the idea of coercion ? It was this,---that if certain things were not done by the Turkish Government,—we being the judges of whether they were done or not—then at some time which was not fixed,—we being the judges as to when that time had arrived, we should consider with certain other Powers, and say what we should then do." Surely Wordsworth, if he were now living, might well repeat that " Earth is sick and Heaven is weary of the hollow words which States and kingdoms utter when they talk of truth and justice." Yet air-bubbles of words so light and empty as Lord Derby's are a great advance even on the empty diplomacy of past ages. We should not have thought them the kind of things to build bridges of.
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