Lord Derby’s idea evidently was to delay the Congress till the Powers were so far agreed that their meeting would be virtually one to register foregone conclusions. Lord Beaconsfield and the War Party, on the other hand, knew that their only hope lay in preventing the Congress from meeting. Up to a certain point Lord Derby and Lord Beaconsfield could, therefore, hold common ground. But as Lord Derby’s policy of obstructive procrastination destroyed the popularity of the project before it had brought about such an agreement among the Powers as would render the Congress innocuous, even in his eyes, it was easy for Lord Beaconsfield to take some warlike step that would get rid of Lord Derby and the Congress also. Hence throughout the period of diplomatic conflict that followed we find Lord Derby allowed to object to the Congress, first because Greece was not to be represented, and lastly because the Russians did not distinctly promise to submit the whole Treaty of San Stefano to it. The dispute finally centred round this last point. Out of England nobody at the time could understand Lord Derby’s objection. He seemed, from beginning to end, either to be quibbling about words and phrases, or trying to force Russia to enter the Congress with less liberty of action and on a lower status of dignity and independence than the other Powers. Before England accepted the Congress he wrote to Sir Henry Elliot, saying that she would not enter it unless he distinctly understood that “every article in the Treaty between Russia and Turkey will be placed before the Congress, _not necessarily for acceptance_, but in order that it may be ascertained what articles require acceptance or concurrence by the several Powers, and what do not.” Russia had already admitted that at the Congress each of the Powers “would have full liberty of appreciation and action” as regards the Treaty of San Stefano, and on the 9th of April Prince Gortschakoff’s Circular Note further stated that “in claiming the same right for Russia we can only reiterate the same declaration.” Lord Beaconsfield, on the 8th of April, complained, in the House of Lords, that the phrase “liberty of appreciation and action” was involved in classical ambiguity. “Delphi herself,” said he, with a provoking sneer at the Russian Chancellor, “could hardly have been more perplexing and august.” Yet, on the 27th of March, Count Schouvaloff wrote to Lord Derby as follows: “The liberty of appreciation and action which Russia thinks it right to reserve to herself at the Congress the Imperial Cabinet defines in the following manner. It leaves to the other Powers the liberty of raising such questions at the Congress as they may think it fit to discuss, and reserves to itself the liberty of accepting or not accepting the discussion of those questions.”[127] Russia had communicated the Treaty in its entirety to all the Powers. She had expressly and explicitly informed Austria, who had summoned the Congress, that she admitted