LORD DERBY AT THE FOREIGN OFFICE.
AN apparently semi-official defence, by Mr. Wemyss Reid, of Lord Derby's foreign policy during the years 1876- 1878 appears in the current number of Macmillan's Magazine.
Deis perfectly true, as Mr. Wemyss Reid remarks, that Lord rby's administration of the Foreign Office during that diffi- cult period exposed him to some very severe and some very undeserved censure, on the part of both Liberals and Tories. Looking back to our own criticisms on Lord Derby's policy during that period, we can find now many harsh expressions which we should wish to mitigate, and some suspicions which we recognise as clearly unjust. But we cannot admit that Mr. Wemyss Reid's account of the administration of Lord
Derby is either accurate or adequate. He misses the main points, we think, in which Lord Derby's administration, even as we now regard it, eminently failed ; he puts forward excuses for what Lord Derby did which are but ill-justified by facts : and again fails altogether to put forth any for errors which excited much more hostile criticism among Liberals than some of the points on which he comments. Let us note the chief mistakes, as we think them, of Lord Derby's administration, whether defended, or passed over in silence, by Mr. Wemyss Reid, without in any way withholding our heart-felt gratitude from Lord Derby for what he assuredly did to prevent our committing one of the greatest crimes and greatest blunders to the very edge of which an unscrupulous first Minister has ever urged us.
Looking back over Lord Derby's foreign policy of 18713-78. the feature in it which is most conspicuous, and on which at the time we ourselves again and again insisted as its leading characteristic, comes out more clearly than ever. That feature was Lord Derby's permanent and over-ruling desire to avoid
assuming any kind of responsibility which he could man- age to escape, whether on one side or on the other. Thus if anything he did had produced a feeling of en- couragement, whether in Turkey or among the opponents of Turkey, he immediately found it necessary to hedge, by giving a little impulse to the hopes of the opposite side, of a kind to neutralise any expectations founded on what he had previously done. In a word, the one consistent feature of Lord Derby's policy, from beginning to end, was the sedulousness with which he watched the effect of what he had done on the parties to the great struggle, and threw cold water on any hopes which his action had excited alternately on each side. First, he was most anxious not to encourage the intractability of Turkey, and therefore acceded to the Andrassy Note. Then he became anxious not to encourage the urgent pressure of the European Powers, and therefore he rejected the Berlin Memo- randum. Then he feared the effect of this great stroke in fostering Turkish hopes of assistance from England, whereupon he wrote the despatch warning Turkey that public feeling in England would not again warrant a return to the policy of the Crimean war. Then he became apprehensive that this warn- ing would promote the aggressiveness of Russia, and he told a deputation that though we had guaranteed Turkey against murder,—which was just what his previous warning to Turkey implied that we had not guaranteed her against, —we had not guaranteed her against suicide or natural death. Then, again, he feared that he had said too much, and as the evidence of the reality of the Bulgarian massa- cres—which Lord Derby had at first declared exaggerated —flowed in, he telegraphed to Sir Henry Elliot the warning that these horrors had turned the whole current of English feel- ing, and rendered any British interposition on behalf of Turkey impossible. And it was in this mood that he applied pressure to Turkey to induce her to accept serious and effectual mea- sures of administrative reform. But before this pressure was actually brought to bear, his mood changed again ; he saw that if we joined others to administer moral compulsion, we might fairly be held responsible for making that compulsion effectual, unless we previously repudiated any such design ; and accordingly he made it part of Lord Salisbury's instructions that, whether Turkey complied with or resisted the advice of Europe, Great Britain would be no party to enforcing that advice on a recalcitrant Power. Then, after the Constantinople Conference and an ominous pause of two months, came the curi- ous Protocol of March, 1877, in which Turkey was enjoined to concede some of the claims of Montenegro, to institute reforms in Bulgaria, Bosnia, and the Herzegovina, over the execution of which the European Powers would watch, and, if they found them inadequate, would consider in common what course ought to be pursued,—a Protocol adorned with that most characteristic supplement, stamped with the very genius of Lord Derby, providing that if the disarmament of Russia and Turkey did not ensue, the Protocol just signed should be regarded by England as null and void. In other words, Lord Derby was willing to undertake a certain responsi- bility, if it did not involve the most serious element of that responsibility,—if Russia would withdraw all physical pressure Turkey, and Turkey suppress all her best means of resistance fo Russia ; but if this double self-denying ordinance could not be brought about, then he would take no responsibility at all. Such was Lord Derby's policy up to the beginning of the war, and thenceforward, while he stayed in office, no doubt his aim was single and perfectly consistent,—to keep Great Britain out of the war by all the means in his power. But this can-
not be termed a great policy. From beginning to end, it was a policy not even of cold and avowed neutrality, but rather of a neutral at heart, who could not persuade himself to avow his neutrality, lest such an avowal should precipitate war, and count in favour of the party which was at the time most disposed to rash and violent steps. Lord Derby's policy may be said to have been a policy the aim of which was to discourage action on either side,—at a time, too, when action was most necessary,—whilst sedulously avoiding responsibility on our own part.
Now, what does Mr. Wemyss Reid say, and what does he omit saying, in relation to this policy? Why, he first urges that Lord Derby was right in rejecting the Berlin Memorandum, because he had the means of knowing, from sources then secret, that the three Emperors had really determined on war with Turkey, and a virtual though partial partition of Turkey, as early as 1873 ; and that their ostensible wish for the reform of Turkey was ostensible only, and not sincere.
Well, first, we should like to know precisely when it was that Lord Derby obtained this information. The Berlin Memo- randum was rejected, and peremptorily rejected, on May 19th, 1876. At the very end of 1875, Lord Derby, speaking at Edinburgh (it was on December 17th), declared his sincere belief that the three Emperors desired peace, and that Russia and Austria sincerely desired to see disorder cease in Turkey. Now, if Mr. Wemyss Reid holds that Lord Derby's evidence of the insincerity of these Powers was obtained between 17th December, 187.5, and 19th May, 1876, how is it that he was just as unwilling. or even more unwilling, to in- terfere in Turkish affairs in 1875 than he was in 1876 ? It was only at the request of Turkey that he would give his approval to the Consuls' International Commission of inquiry and media- tion with the insurgents of the Herzegovina. In October, 1875, he made a speech at Liverpool, in which he endeavoured to make out that the discontent in the Herzegovina had been grossly exaggerated, and maintained that, bad as the Turkish Govern- ment was, it must be backed up, because there was nothing to substitute for it. Now, this was some months before he had the evidence of Imperial insincerity to which Mr. Wemyss Reid alludes, or he could hardly have spoken at Edinburgh as he did in December. Yet he acted in the autumn of 1875 on precisely the same principles as those on which he acted in May, 1876, when, according to Mr. Wemyss Reid, he was chiefly actuated 'by his knowledge that the Great Powers were not straight- forward in their professions. In the next place, Mr. Wemyss Reid is not accurate in stating that Lord Derby, at the time of the Berlin Memorandum, was compelled to accept cut-and- dried propositions by telegraph, or to reject them. No doubt 'that was the mode in which the matter was first presented to the world, but every one now knows that this mode of presenting it was unfair. We were pressed both by Russia and by Ger- many, if we disliked the proposals of the Berlin Memorandum, 'to substitute counter-proposals of our own. So far from being -compelled to accept a number of cut-and-dried propositions by -telegraph, from all concern in the preparation of which we had been excluded, we were most earnestly urged to take what objections we would, but to offer something on our own behalf in place of proposals which seemed to us dangerous. It was, therefore, not Lord Derby's secret knowledge that we were being forced into a false position, which determined the cava- lier rejection of the Berlin Memorandum. It was, in our belief, his fear that in joining in the Andrassy Note we had gone too far in one direction, and his wish to hedge by striking a compensating blow on the opposite side. In fact, Lord Derby anticipated at this time the very policy of first striking Km ball one way, and then the other, which he afterwards pursued in sending Lord Salisbury to the Conference of Con- stantinople, with a preliminary avowal that if Turkey did not g've way, we would have nothing to do with the use of force; and subsequently, again, in signing a Protocol dictating to Turkey what she ought to do, and adding an annex which expressly annulled it, in case Turkey declined to do it.
We have no wish at all to detract from Lord Derby's great merit in keeping us out of war for a disgraceful cause, towards the end of his administration. What Mr. Wemyss Reid says on this head is very just, and Lord Derby's action deserves all the praise he gives it. At the same time, the force and sagacity of a foreign policy are measured more by the initiative which a states- mandisplays while the course of events is as yet indeterminate, than by his final accession to, or withdrawal from, the policy into which events ultimately combine to urge him. Lord Derby did well at the close. But he showed neither a true appreciation of what was coming, while there was still time to
modify events, nor when the truth dawned upon him, sufficient courage to take a part and keep it. He might have held to a severe and cold neutrality throughout. That would have been the expression of his true mind. But for that, in the Cabinet in which Lord Beaconsfield presided, he had not nerve. He might have promised Turkey help against invasion on condition that she accepted absolutely our dictation as to the administrative measures by which she might earn our guarantee. For a policy of that kind it is probable enough that his greatest colleagues would have been prepared, and though it would have been at once audacious and almost hope- less, it would have been the policy most consonant to the views of the Cabinet at large. But he would do neither. He was too timid to stand resolutely aloof. He was too wise to offer Turkey an alliance on condition of pursuing a policy dictated by us. He was too Conservative, and too much ham- pered by Conservative ties, to pursue Mr. Gladstone's policy of joining Russia in shaping the European demands of concessions to Turkey's Christian populations. He consequently vacillated from the bursting-out of the insurrection in the Herzegovina till Russia declared war, and threw his influence irresolutely now into one scale, now into the other. In 1877-1878 what he did to prevent war was nobly done. Between 1875 and 1877, what he did to avoid war was badly and feebly done. It was the policy of a half-hearted statesman, who wished to eschew responsibility, without avowing that this was the main, if not the only, object which he kept steadily in view.
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