The means used by Disraeli for preserving the peace of Europe and protecting our Eastern Empire were, in the rough, on the lines I have tried to shadow. First of all, refusing to allow the creation of an unwieldy and anarchic province of discordant races which could not become a coherent nation, he reduced the Bulgaria designed under the San Stefano arrangement by two-thirds, created Eastern Roumelia, with a framed constitution, south of the Balkans, and yielded the rest to Turkey. By this measure not only was Bulgaria prevented from being bulky and hybrid, but the Macedonian Greeks (preponderant over Slavs and Serbs) were saved from absorption. Turkey was delimited in Europe by the natural fastnesses of the Balkans--one that even in his youth Disraeli marked as the real frontier. Turkey was pledged to reform her administration, while the signatories also guaranteed her from Russian aggression. Both Russia and Turkey, therefore--and, indeed, all Europe--knew that England was in earnest about her Indian Empire. Turkey’s position was ascertained, so was Russia’s. Russia was propitiated by Bessarabia, Kars, Ardahan, and Batoum; Turkey, gratified by the retention of the great portion of what was to have been Bulgaria’s, by the retention of Bayazid, by the great region of Erzeroum, and of the valley of Alashkerd. Further, Cyprus fell to the lot of England as a post “of arms,” a strategical, a coasting and a coaling port of high value for our Indian Empire, commanding as it does the high-route which leads to the Euphrates Valley, and useful besides for Egypt. He had noted this island on his youthful trip in the East as most opportune for the purpose.[128] Disraeli’s whole purview, in these arrangements, apart from the defence of Great Britain, was to ensure a feasible government under the watch of the European concert. This intention is well expressed by the late Master of Balliol, writing in 1877: “... I want to see the higher civilisation of Europe combining against the lower and offering something like a paternal government to ... the East. _But then there is such a danger of taking away the government which they have and substituting only chaos._ This might be avoided if the European Powers would jointly take up their cause....” I may be allowed to recall, in relation to some of these matters, a few of Disraeli’s immediate after-utterances. They are too often neglected. As regards the English guarantee of the Porte against Russian offence, attained by the Convention of Constantinople which supplemented the treaty, he observed--