Note 130 — Chapter XXI · THE REIGN OF JINGOISM.

It ought to be said that Lord Derby’s ablest apologist, Mr. T. Wemyss Reid, in an article in Macmillan’s Magazine for June, 1879, advanced a fair defence for his hesitancy to work zealously with the European Powers. Mr. Reid asserts, and in a manner which commands respectful attention, that Lord Derby knew that as far back as 1873 Russia, Germany, and Austria had entered into a secret agreement to upset the status quo in Turkey. No historian can presume to pass a final judgment on Lord Derby’s career at the Foreign Office without carefully studying this remarkable article. It explains much that is otherwise inexplicable in Lord Derby’s policy, and had it been an official communiqué it would have been almost conclusive.