Note 80 — PART II. THE EASTERN QUESTION.

“The objections of detail taken by the English Cabinet to the Berlin Memorandum were at once met by Prince Bismarck by the declaration that these points were entirely ‘open to discussion, that they might be modified according to circumstances, and that he, for one, would willingly entertain any improvement which Her Majesty’s Government might have to propose.’... France implored Her Majesty’s Government to reconsider its decision, and declared that persistence in it would, at such a momentous crisis, be nothing short of a ‘public calamity.’ She ‘could not conceal the apprehensions for the future to which this refusal have given rise.’ Italy did the same. The position was, that England objected to everything proposed by others, and had nothing to propose herself. Continued trust in the Turks was her only suggestion” (The Duke of Argyll’s “The Eastern Question,” vol. i. pp. 202, 203).