Lord Beaconsfield is carrying the policy of secrecy so far
that he may disgust even his own followers at last. With relation to the acquisition of Cyprus and the Anglo-Turkish Convention, he has produced no scrap of correspondence beyond that despatch of Lord Salisbury's which we have now had for some time. And when the Government are challenged on the matter, they reply mysteriously that "there are no other despatches which can at present be laid on the table of the House." Lord Beaconsfield said on Tuesday, "I shall be able to show, not only by prece- dents, but I hope by very good reasons also, that secrecy was the object of the Government, and that the object we had to attain could not have been realised, except by secrecy. But if secrecy were necessary, if secrecy were pursued, and if it were only by secrecy that the object of the Government could be achieved," why, then, of course, investigations involving publicity were impossible, —and hence the profound ignorance of the Government as to the capabilities of Cyprus. Secrecy, in short, is harped upon till the English people will be quite sick of the word, and there is no word they will be more likely to get sick of soon. It is almost without precedent, in presenting to Parliament the record of a completed arrangement, to refuse all communications of the negotiations leading up to it ; and this is what the Government are doing, in relation to the Anglo-Turkish Convention. Mystification may tell as a minute element in a grand and showy policy, but a per- sistent and ostentatious display of mystery soon disgusts ; and a Government which insists on concealing the approaches to its policy after its acts are made public, will become as ridiculous as Mr. Peckeniff himself when, two miles from home, be began walking ostentatiously on tiptoe, in order to take his dear girls by surprise.
