One more surprise was still forthcoming.  Lord Derby, speaking in the House of Lords on July 18, gave point to these protests by divulging a State secret of no small importance, namely, that one of the causes of his retirement at the end of March was a secret proposal of the Ministry to send an expedition from India to seize Cyprus and one of the Syrian ports with a view to operations against Russia, and that, too, with or without the consent of the Sultan.  Whether the Cabinet arrived at anything like a decision in this question is very doubtful.  Lord Salisbury stoutly denied the correctness of his predecessor’s statement.  The papers of Sir Stafford Northcote also show that the scheme at that time came up for discussion, but was “laid aside[178].”  Lord Derby, however, stated that he had kept private notes of the discussion; and it is improbable that he would have resigned on a question that was merely mooted and entirely dismissed.  The mystery in which the deliberations of the Cabinet are involved, and very rightly involved, broods over this as over so many topics in which Lord Beaconsfield was concerned.

[Footnote 178:  Sir Stafford Northcote, vol. ii. p. 108.]

On another and far weightier point no difference of opinion is possible.  Viewed by the light of the Cyprus Convention, Britain’s responsibility for assuring a minimum of good government for the Christians of Asiatic Turkey is undeniable.  Unfortunately it admits of no denial that the duties which that responsibility involves have not been discharged.  The story of the misgovernment and massacre of the Armenian Christians is one that will ever redound to the disgrace of all the signatories of the Treaty of Berlin; it is doubly disgraceful to the Power which framed the Cyprus Convention.

A praiseworthy effort was made by the Beaconsfield Government to strengthen British influence and the cause of reform by sending a considerable number of well-educated men as Consuls to Asia Minor, under the supervision of the Consul-General, Sir Charles Wilson.  In the first two years they effected much good, securing the dismissal of several of the worst Turkish officials, and implanting hope in the oppressed Greeks and Armenians.  Had they been well supported from London, they might have wrought a permanent change.  Such, at least, is the belief of Professor Ramsay after several years’ experience in Asia Minor.

Unfortunately, the Gladstone Government, which came into power in the spring of 1880, desired to limit its responsibilities on all sides, especially in the Levant.  The British Consuls ceased to be supported, and after the arrival of Mr. (now Lord) Goschen at Constantinople in May 1880, as Ambassador Extraordinary, British influence began to suffer a decline everywhere through Turkey, partly owing to the events soon to be described.  The outbreak of war in Egypt in 1882 was made a pretext by the British Government for the transference of the Consuls to Egypt; and