178 THE STORY OF THE KHEDIVATE.

his own ability to stir up antagonism between the \ European members of the Commission was not justi-\ fied by the event. He had taken it for granted that ) the European Governments, who had forced upon him \ the appointment of the Commission, only desired to j protect the financial interests of their subjects, and did / not concern themselves with the manner in which this \ protection might be obtained.

Possibly this anticipation might have proved correct if Lord Beaconsfield had not been Prime Minister at the time, and if the two Commissioners, Mr. (now Sir) Rivers Wilson and Major Baring had not been men of exceptional ability and resolution.

Mr. Rivers Wilson, who, after a distinguished career in the Treasury, had been given the post of Controller of the National Debt, possessed not only a perfect knowledge of the French language, but an accomplishment still rarer amidst our fellowl countrymen, that of making himself a persona grata 1 to foreigners. I may add here that the consent I of her Majesty's Government to allow a high I official in the British service to leave his post \for a prolonged period in order to investigate the '/financial position of an independent state, was a \ virtual abandonment of the policy of non-inter-Wention upheld up to this date by our Foreign ipffice. It is characteristic of our extreme reluctance to resort to active intervention that, in referring to this appointment in an official document, Lord Salisbury, who had just succeeded Lord Derby