FIRST STAGE OF INTERVENTION. I47 with its advice on all questions concerning the finances" of the State, an advice which, it was assumed by the II author of the proposal, must necessarily command// his respectful attention. The members of this|\ Commission were to be nominated by the Powers / whose subjects were interested in Egyptian securities. / A proposal to this effect was addressed to the Govern- I ments of France, Austria, Italy, and England. They then Minister of Foreign Affairs in France went out of his way to state, on the application being made to him officially, that " he felt no difficulty whatever on the subject." But Lord Derby, as Secretary of) State for Foreign Affairs, took a completely different f . view, and declined to nominate any British Com- ( missioner, on the ground that the financial arrangement, which the Commission was to assist in carrying into execution, did not commend itself to the approval of her Majesty's Government. The excuse was in itself valid enough. But I am strongly of opinion that, if so good a plea for refusal had not been forthcoming, some other plea would have been discovered. Lord Derby, though a Conservative in name, was then, and I think remained to the end, an .

adherent of Mr. Gladstone's foreign policy, and an I opponent of the foreign policy of Mr. Disraeli. Hr happened to meet him out one evening shortly before his resignation, and in the course of a conversation on foreign affairs, he suddenly remarked in that slow, sleepy voice of his, which always sounded as if he was speaking to himself, not to his hearer, "Well,