in the internal affairs of the Empire._”[66] Prophetic words on the part of Lord Derby. Of course the consular farce came to nothing. The rebels would not even meet the Consuls. Facts were more eloquent than words, and they had their cues from the Committees. Now was the time, if the Powers had been in earnest, to shut the Dalmatian frontier to the rebels, as they had undertaken to do. We shall see how Austria fulfilled this part of the bargain. Instead of occupying themselves in the slightest degree with this part of the business, they immediately set about concocting another diplomatic move. On 11th December 1875, the Austrian Ambassador, Count Beust, called on Lord Derby, and said that “The Turkish Ministers had hitherto directed their energies exclusively to the task of preventing anything which could be construed into an interference of any kind with the internal affairs of Turkey. This standpoint, however respectable it may be, has the disadvantage the Austro‐Hungarian Government considered, of prolonging a regrettable state of things, and therefore of aggravating the danger. _Negotiations respecting the affairs of the East are now being carried on between Vienna and St Petersburg_, the result of which will be communicated as soon as an agreement has been arrived at, to Her Majesty’s Government, not in the light of an accomplished fact, but for their consideration, and for them to state their own opinions on the propositions agreed upon.”[67] On the 3rd January 1876, Lord Derby received from Count Beust a copy of the famous despatch, which goes by the name of the Andrassy Memorandum, of the 30th December 1875, which, after stating that the three Courts of Austria‐Hungary, Russia, and Germany, after exchanging their views on this subject, “have united for the purpose of employing in common their efforts for pacification, and this object appeared too much in conformity with the general wish for them to doubt that _the other Cabinets when invited to associate themselves in the movement_, through their representatives at Constantinople, would hasten to join their efforts to ours,” proceeded to recommend to the Porte the following five points:— (1) Full and entire religious liberty. (2) Abolition of the system of farming the taxes. (3) A law guaranteeing the produce of direct taxes being employed in the interest of the provinces. (4) The institution of a special commission composed of an equal number of Christians and Mussulmans, to control the execution of the reforms. (5) The improvement of the position of the rural population.