buoyed up with delusive hopes. In an instant the scandal of the Secret Agreement was forgotten. The wildest tales of the wealth that was to be exploited in Cyprus flew from mouth to mouth. Englishmen saw with prophetic eye, “in a fine frenzy rolling,” Asia Minor “opened up,” under a British Protectorate, by the British prospector and pioneer. Indeed, it was not till the 9th of November, when the nauseous wines of Cyprus (of which such glowing accounts had been published) were served at the Lord Mayor’s Banquet, that the truth dawned on the City. Then it was recognised that the country had been deceived as to the teeming riches of its new possessions and positions in the East. Cool-headed men did not, however, at the outset conceal their opinion that the privilege of occupying Cyprus and of defending the Asiatic frontier of Turkey was a poor substitute for the occupation of Egypt as a means of restoring British influence in the East and safeguarding British communications with India. Mr. Gladstone and Lord Hartington both denounced the Anglo-Turkish Convention, as an “insane covenant,” and the Opposition attacked it savagely in Parliament, but without success. Independent Members attributed less importance to the arrangement than Mr. Gladstone. They argued that, as the introduction of reforms into Asia Minor was the condition precedent of defending the frontier by arms, the Treaty, so far as England was concerned, would remain a dead-letter. Great commercial interests, if created in Asia Minor by English adventurers, might doubtless need defence. But, on the other hand, it was impossible to create those interests so long as Asia Minor was desolated by misgovernment, which the Sultan had not the power, even if he had the will, to reform. Lord Beaconsfield and Lord Salisbury returned to London on the 15th of July, bringing with them, as they said, “Peace with Honour.” Applauding crowds welcomed them with passionate enthusiasm. The Tories were delighted with the Anglo-Turkish Convention, for as yet the gilt had not been rubbed off their Cyprian toy. The Liberals, though indignant at the betrayal of Greece, were pleased that Lord Beaconsfield had come out of the Congress without involving England in war. They could say very little against a Treaty the net result of which was to free eleven millions of Christian Slavs from the direct rule of the Sultan, to render even divided Bulgaria practically autonomous, and to create Servia and Roumania into independent Kingdoms. On the 18th of July Lord Beaconsfield gave the House of Lords an apologetic explanation of the Treaty of Berlin, which was only the Treaty of San Stefano modified by the Salisbury-Schouvaloff Agreement, and by the concession to Austria of the right to occupy Bosnia and Herzegovina. The debate raised no point of interest, save Lord Derby’s disclosure of the Ministerial decision in May, to send a naval Expedition to Syria, a project which was abandoned when he quitted the Cabinet.