Why not, he asked, solve the difficulty by applying the principle of counterpoise? One way of doing that obviously would be to establish an actual equilibrium between the Black Sea fleets of Turkey and Russia--the Sultan having the right to open the straits to the ships of his allies if threatened with attack. M. de Drouyn Lhuys and Lord John Russell did not consider that their instructions permitted them to accept this compromise. But they both privately expressed their personal approval of it, and promised to urge the Governments of France and England to assent to it. The French Emperor and the British Cabinet rejected it. M. Drouyn de Lhuys accordingly resigned office--whereas Lord John Russell remained in the Cabinet. But he had the amazing indiscretion after this to advocate the prosecution of the war in an extravagant speech,[209] whereupon the Austrian Government revealed the fact that at Vienna he had said peace might be honourably made on the basis of Count Buol’s compromise. No English Minister in our time has ever placed himself in a more humiliating position. Not a word could be said in his defence. All he himself could say was that he was afraid he might embarrass his colleagues if he retired, or if he let it be known that he thought they were carrying on war, when peace might honourably be concluded. The outcry against his dishonesty was so loud, that he resigned as soon as Sir E. B. Lytton gave notice of a motion in the House of Commons condemning his conduct. The failure of the Conference gave rise to heated debates in Parliament, in which the Government was attacked by a curious combination of Parties. The House of Lords with singular want of patriotism and dignity encouraged Lyndhurst to vilipend Prussia and sneer at Austria, at the very moment when it was vital to our diplomatic success to conciliate these Powers. His violent speeches prove that, despite his eloquence, he lacked the one quality necessary to justify his interference in any debate on Foreign Affairs. He was utterly incapable of appreciating the difference between the interests of England and France, and those of Austria in the negotiations--the difference between the interests and the prepossessions of actual and contingent belligerents. But all this criticism of the Conference, even from the point of view taken by rhetorical mischief-makers like Lyndhurst, failed to lay bare the one blunder in strategy which the Plenipotentiaries had perpetrated.[210] The House of Commons, it must be allowed, came out of the debates more creditably than had been expected. The Tories, led by Mr. Disraeli, seemed to keep their heads cool, and scrupulously refrained from clamouring for war because Russia had rejected the Third Point. They refused to support the Radicals, who were for moving an Address to the Crown virtually binding the Government to accept the Austrian proposals. But they condemned the Ministers for the ambiguity of their policy in