In answer to a question from Earl Grey as to
an arrangement by which he conceived that war might have been averted, men- tioned not long ago in the correspondence of the Daily Telegraph, Lord Derby made on Tuesday a most openly anti-Russian speech, in which he stated that whatever the Turks had been willing to accept, the Russians would certainly have rejected, and that the attempt to make peace was an attempt to achieve an impossibility. He found the Turks, he said, profoundly impressed with the belief that no concessions would prevent war, and Lord Derby so shaped his remarks as to convey to everybody that he held with them. Lord Derby may, of course, be right ; but as the effect of Turkish concession to Russia, or to any other Power, was certainly never tried, his belief is highly conjectural and unverifiable ; nor is it easy to see on what principle he accuses a Power which was, comparatively speaking, wax in his hands, of adamantine obstinacy, while he credits the Power which was adamant to his representations, with something like reasonable- ness, if not docility. These prepossessions of Lord Derby's are omens, and not pleasant omens, of the future.
