Page:Dictionary of National Biography, Second Supplement, volume 3.djvu/711

 should each send a special commissioner to Egypt who should in concert with the Khedive reorganise the Egyptian army, examine and reform all branches of the Egyptian administration, and consider the best means for tranquillising the Soudan by pacific methods. When these ends were accomplished, the two governments would consider terms for the withdrawal of the British troops from Egypt within a convenient period. Wolff went to Egypt as British commissioner under this convention. Moukhtar Pasha was the Turkish commissioner. At the end of twelve months Wolff returned to England in order to discuss the terms of a further arrangement with Turkey. In Jan. 1887 he proceeded to Constantinople, and there negotiated a second convention, signed on 22 May, which stipulated for the withdrawal of the British forces from Egypt at the end of three years, with the proviso that the evacuation should be postponed in the event of any external or internal danger at that time; that for two years after the evacuation Great Britain was to watch exclusively over the safety of the country; and that subsequently both the Sultan and the British government were each to have the right, if necessary, of sending a force to Egypt either for its defence or for the maintenance of order. In a separate note it was stated that the refusal of one of the Mediterranean great powers to accept the convention would be regarded by the British government as an external danger justifying the postponement of the evacuation. The governments of Austria, Germany, and Italy were favourably inclined to this arrangement, but the French government, which determinedly opposed it, intimated together with the Russian government that if it were ratified they would feel justified in occupying other portions of Turkish territory. The Sultan consequently refused to ratify it.

Wolff returned to England in July 1887. Lord Salisbury in a final despatch observed that the negotiations had defined formally the character of the English occupation and the conditions necessary to bring it to a close. The convention of Oct. 1885 remained in force as a recognition by the Porte of the occupation, and the continued presence of the Turkish commissioner in Egypt, though possibly not in all respects convenient, implied acquiescence in the situation.

Wolff's parliamentary career had been brought to a close by his defeat at Portsmouth in the general election of November 1885, while he was absent in Egypt. For the future his work was entirely in the diplomatic profession. In Dec. 1887 he was appointed British envoy in Persia, and proceeded to Teheran early in the following year. Here his versatile energy found ample occupation in watching the progress and development of Russian policy on the northern frontier, in devising plans for harmonious action by the two powers in lieu of the traditional rivalry between their legations, in promoting schemes for the development of British commercial enterprise, and in encouraging the Persian government in efforts for administrative and financial reform. Among the measures, which he was instrumental in promoting were the issue of a decree in May 1888 for the protection of property from arbitrary acts of the executive and the opening of the Karun river to steam navigation in October following. A concession obtained by Baron Reuter on the occasion of the Shah's visit to England in 1872, which was worded in such vague and comprehensive terms as to seem incapable of practical development, took, under Wolff's guidance, a business-like and beneficial shape in the establishment of the Imperial Bank of Persia. Some other schemes were less successful. A carefully considered project for the construction of a railway from Ahwaz on the Karun river in the direction of Ispahan failed to obtain sufficient financial support, and the concession of the tobacco régie to a group of English financiers, which seemed to promise considerable advantages to the Persian exchequer, excited such fanatical opposition that it was in the end abandoned some time after Wolff's departure from Persia. Wolff received the grand cross of the Bath in Jan. 1889, and was summoned home later in the year to attend the Shah on his visit to England. He accompanied the Persian sovereign during his tour in England and Scotland. On his way back to Teheran in Aug. 1889 Wolff passed through St. Petersburg, where he had an audience of the Emperor of Russia, and urged the importance of an agreement between the two countries on the policy to be pursued in Persia, obtaining an assurance that the new Russian minister at Teheran would be authorised to discuss any proposals, which he might be empowered to put forward for this object. He had intended in 1890 to visit India, but before his departure from Teheran he was struck down by a serious illness, during which his life was at one