Page:Dictionary of National Biography, Second Supplement, volume 1.djvu/354

 ment accordingly required all the terms of that armistice to be submitted to a European conference. The Russian reply reserved to Russia the right of excluding from discussion whatever clauses of the treaty it chose. This brought the two Powers to the brink of war, and Derby, who was constitutionally unprepared for that contingency, resigned the foreign secretaryship, under some misapprehension, however, as to the exact intentions of his colleagues, which resulted in a regrettable passage at arms in the House of Lords with his successor (see Life of Lord Cranbrook, ii. 77). Salisbury was appointed to the vacant office on 1 April 1878. His qualifications for filling it included, besides his recent mission to Constantinople, a prolonged study of foreign affairs, of which the evidence is to be found as well in early speeches (e.g. House of Commons, 7 June 1855) as in some of his articles contributed to the 'Quarterly Review' [ 'Lord Castlereagh' (Jan. 1862); 'Poland' (April 1863) ; 'The Danish Duchies' (Jan. 1864); 'Foreign Policy' (April 1864)]. He brought to his work a clear conception both of the character and aim of English diplomacy, which is best stated in his own language. 'In our foreign policy,' he said at Stamford in 1865,' what we have to do is simply to perform our own part with honour; to abstain from a meddling diplomacy.; to uphold England's honour steadily and fearlessly and always to be rather prone to let action go along with words than to let it lag behind them' ( Life and Speeches of Lord Salisbury, i. 68). Five years before (Quarterly Review, April 1860, p. 528) he had approved (in contrast to the then existing policy of non-interference) the 'traditional' part which England had played in Europe 'England did not meddle with other nations' doings when they concerned her not. But she recognised the necessity of an equilibrium and the value of a public law among the states of Europe. When a great Power abused its superiority by encroaching on the frontier of its weaker neighbours, she looked on their cause as her cause and on their danger as the forerunner of her own.

It was in accordance with these precepts that a day after (2 April 1878) he took over the foreign office he issued the 'Salisbury Circular,' requiring that all the articles of the treaty of San Stefano should be submitted to the proposed conference, declaring emphatically against the creation of a 'big' Bulgaria, and arguing that, even though the Turkish concessions to Russia might be tolerated individually, taken together they constituted a serious menace to Europe. One of Salisbury's successors at the foreign office has pointed to this despatch as the masterpiece of Salisbury's diplomatic work (, speech at the Oxford Union, 14 Nov. 1904). It is at any rate remarkable for its promptitude, its lucidity, and its firmness, and it undoubtedly secured for the government a large measure of public support. England was clearly in earnest, and subsequent secret negotiations between Salisbury and Shuvalov, the Russian ambassador, resulted in an agreement to divide the proposed province into two parts that south of the Balkans to be administered by a Christian governor, nominated by the Sultan. Through the treachery of Charles Thomas Marvin [q. v.], a foreign office copyist, the terms of this agreement appeared in the 'Globe' newspaper, and Salisbury's denial in the House of Lords of the authenticity of the statements, thus disclosed at a momentous diplomatic crisis, is the most debatable incident in a singularly honourable career. The secret convention with Russia, balanced by the 'Cyprus' convention with Turkey, secured the semblance of a diplomatic success for England at Berlin, and Salisbury, who in company with Lord Beaconsfield, the prime minister, represented this country at the congress (13 June-13 July 1878), returned bringing in the famous phrase 'peace with honour.' His services were rewarded with the garter, almost the only distinction which he was ever induced to accept (30 July 1878). A well-known epigram of Bismarck 'The old Jew means business, but his colleague is lath painted to look like iron 'may have strengthened the idea that Salisbury was at this time something of a tool in the hands of his chief. It is unlikely, however, that, when the diplomatic history of this period comes to be more fully told, this verdict will be endorsed.

The principal provisions of the treaty of Berlin were that the Slavonic settlement of the Eastern question, embodied in the idea of a 'big Bulgaria,' should be abandoned; that Austria, for which Salisbury, like his diplomatic model, Castlereagh, entertained a peculiar regard, should be entrusted and this was done at his particular instance with the administration of Bosnia and the Herzegovina ; that Russia, who obtained Batum (together with Kars and Ardahan), should make of it 'a free port, essentially commercial.' The