DRIFTING.
WE have criticised Lord Derby for his Laodieean foreign policy, but we fear the time may be at hand when we would give a great deal to have him as Laodicean as he was at the time when a little earnestness would have prevented war. It is bad to be neither hot nor cold, but it is even worse to be hot when you should be cold and cold when you should be hot. Lard Derby's speech of Tuesday night is one of the most ominous and dangerous symptoms that we have yet observed, and its tone differs by an immense interval from the tone of the speech of the previous Thursday. Between Thursday and Tuesday Lord Derby has travelled much further than from Laodicea to Con- stantinople, for he has passed from at least assumed in- difference to advocacy, from the tone of an impartial critic of both parties to the tone of reproachful eensure of the one, and of hardly veiled apology for the other. On Tuesday Lord Grey asked whether a certain draft protocol, of which the correspondent of the Daily Telegraph had given an account, had ever really been proposed by Turkey. This draft protocol was one embodying such an arrangement as Mr. Forster and others were so anxious for as long ago as September last,—namely, that Turkey should pledge herself solemnly to the guaranteeing Powers of the Treaty of Paris to accom- plish progressively, and with as little delay as possible, the reforms accepted in the Andrassy Note, and afterwards formu- lated by the Conference. The guaranteeing Powers were to take notice of this declaration, and were to watch, through Com- missioners, the execution of the promises made. If the reforms were not realised to the satisfaction of the guaranteeing Powers, they would then consider in common what should be done to keep Turkey to her engagements ; and there- upon Turkey and Russia, as having come to an understand- ing, would begin simultaneously to disarm. Now, an engage- ment of that kind, if accompanied by a conclusion of peace with Servia and Montenegro, would have been very likely to have produced peace in September last. At that time, Lord Derby either refrained from pressing Turkey to enter into such an engagement, or took her refusal with that perfect composure with which he has taken all the Turkish rebuffs. Even then such an arrangement would have been a most idle and makeshift solution, because of course Turkey would have done nothing, and of course, when the time came for considering how to make her keep her engagements, the whole deferred crisis would have recurred. Still, in September last, when Lord Derby so meekly allowed Turkey to offer a six months' suspension of hostilities instead of a month's suspension, with an engagement to the Powers to carry out the proposed reforms, the proposal of the Daily Telegraph's imaginary draft protocol would probably have resulted in a temporary peace. But as a proposed solution of the question after Turkey had rejected the advice of the Conference, rejected the Protocol of London, and in short, rejected peremptorily every attempt to interfere with her freedom of action,—meaning, of course, her freedom to plunder and to massacre her subjects as to her might seem best,—this last expedient of diplomatic despair seems utterly imbecile. However, our business is not with the proposal itself, but with Lord Derby's reply in relation to it, which is food for thought, and thought of a most painful kind. First, Lord Derby began with a panegyric on the cor- respondence of the journal in which this imaginary draft protocol appeared :—" Doubtless this draft protocol ap- peared in a newspaper correspondence which I have followed with some interest for the last few weeks, and have generally found not only very well informed, but very accurate as to facts." Considering that the journal in question has been as Ministerial in tone as it is possible to be, is as devoted to Lord Derby as it could be without repressing its en- thusiasm for Turkey, and as ardent on behalf of Turkey as was, till lately, consistent with devotion to Lord Derby —for the future, the two feelings seem likely to be in perfect consistency, and consequently the journal in question has now gone to the very brink of demanding an English war against Russia—we are not greatly surprised at this spontaneous certifi- cate to accuracy, though we doubt its good-taste. But Lord Derby goes on to say that though he has no doubt that a paper of this kind was put into the hands of the correspondent of the Daily Telegraph by some high official personage, there is no trace to be found of any such official proposal by the states- men of Turkey. Nevertheless, Lord Derby meets the inquiry whether, if any such proposal had been made, Turkey would have been willing to negotiate on such a basis, and he replies with his usual lucid caution, that he is no judge of might- have-beens. He does not seem to remember that it was his own faul. t that this, or a very closely analogous proposition, com- mitting the Turkish Government in so many words to the promise of reforms which the European Powers would then have had a treaty right to see executed, was not pressed on Turkey long ago,—though if it had been, there is as much reason to believe that it would have been met with a Non possumus, as either that Berlin Memorandum which we re- jected, or that "Protocol of London," which we signed. But though Lord Derby will make no conjecture as to the action of Turk. ey, if this kind of proposal, which was not in reality any milder or more acceptable to Turkey than the one she rejected, had been placed before her, he has no scruple at all about making a similar conjecture concerning Russia, and making it in a sense very hostile to Russia. He will not guess what might have been conceded by Turkey, but he guesses at once and without hesitation what might not have been conceded by Russia :—"One cannot, ' say how a proposition would have been received when that I proposition was not made, but I must point out that there were two parties in the transaction —the Turkish Govern- ment and the Russian Government. It would be of very little use to put forward propositions which would be accepted on one side, when there is a moral certainty that they would not be accepted by the other. The whole object of our negotiations was to bring these two parties to an understanding, and if propositions were put forward which were satisfactory to the Turkish Government, I am sure Russia would have said, 'No; we shall have nothing to do with them, but we shall make counter-propositions, and shall submit them for your acceptance.' I am as certain as it is possible to be of anything which has not passed, that if any proposition such as that to which my noble friend has called attention had been put forward on the part of Turkey, it would have been met with grave objections on the part of Russia." Nor does Lord Derby stop here. He goes on to recite the deep-rooted suspicions entertained by Turkey of the good-faith of Russia, and to give them by implication the support of his own judg- ment. "For my part, I do not think that any form of pro- tocol, or any form of agreement, would have put an end to the misunderstanding. Throughout these transactions I found on the part of the Turkish Government a deeply-rooted convic- tion that, do what they would, make what concessions they would, sooner or later war would be forced upon them. It is not for me to say whether that conviction was right or wrong, but it was fixed in the minds of the Sultan and his advisers; and that being so, the task of endeavouring to bring about an understanding was not a very hopeful one." "I deeply regret what has come to pass, but I believe that in our endeavour to maintain peace between Turkey and Russia—an endeavour which we made through a sense of duty—we were engaged in the solution of an impossible problem." And no one can mistake on whom Lord Derby lays the bur- den of responsibility for this impossibility. Turkey, he says plainly enough, might have accepted a reason- able proposal, but if she had, Russia would at once have vetoed it. Turkey's deeply-rooted distrust of Russia was the great obstacle to peace, but that distrust Lord Derby justifies, by himself declaring that any reasonable proposition accepted by Turkey would have been promptly rejected by Russia.
In short, one would infer from Lord Derby's speech that, time after time, Turkey had shown herself eager for concession, and had been met by Russia with af- fronts,—that while the Russian proposals had been fairly and candidly met by Turkey, the Turkish proposals had always been rejected by Russia. Now, what are the facts Has Turkey, from the beginning of the negotia- tions to the end, ever once accepted a proposal for peace urged on her, whether by Russia or the other Powers, or even by England, excepting perhaps the recommenda- tions as to peace with Servia, which were, on the whole, accepted by Turkey She refused all that was recommended in the case of Montenegro. She refused what Lord Derby himself urged on her as to the punishment of the authors of the massacres. She rejected all the recommendations of the Conference. She rejected the Protocol of London almost with contempt. She never yielded an inch to any Power, hostile or friendly, except in regard to peace with Servia, from the beginning of the war with Servia to the present moment.. Russia, on the contrary, reduced her demands on Turkey so strangely, that before the end of the Conference everybody believed that Russia was too weak to press any demand. If Lord Salisbury went to Constantinople to obtain the whittling- away of the Russian requirements, he completely succeeded. The minimum proposed to Turkey at the close seemed sa trivial, that many of the friends of the Christian Provinces positively hoped for its rejection, rather than that the inter- ference of Europe should come to so ignominious an end. And yet the Protocol of London asked for less than the Conference had asked for,—it waived all the guarantees, and it was Lord Derby himself who told us why those guarantees were waived. It was not much use, he said, trying to get Turkey to yield theg-uarantees, when the guarantees had been the ground of rupture after the Conference. Well, the guarantees were given up, and the result was just the same as before. And then Lord Derby goes and makes a speech in which he tells the world that however moderate Turkey might have been, Russia would have been quite certain to find an excuse for rejecting her proposals. We say that this speech is a speech deliberately taking the just blame of her obstinacy off Turkey and placing it on Russia; that it is a speech con. spicuously unjust to Russia, insulting to Russia, and of a nature to foster animosity towards Russia ; and that if, sooner or later, we drift into a war with Russia, there will be a con- siderable share of responsibility for that disastrous course on this mischievous and discreditable speech of Lord Derby's. We are still told on every side that the Turks count absolutely on the ultimate interference of England on their behalf, and we are not sure that they are wrong. All the evidence appears to show that the Turks understand Lord Derby better than Lord Derby understands himself.
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