Lord Lyons (Vol. 1&2). Thomas Wodehouse Legh Newton
appointment, when it became known publicly, was generally approved, and no one wrote in warmer terms of congratulation than Lord Clarendon, who had been Lord Stanley's predecessor at the Foreign Office, and who stated that he had himself suggested Lord Lyons to his successor as the most suitable man for the post.
Thus, at the comparatively early age of fifty he had attained the highest place in the British diplomatic service.
As regards Lord Lyons's two years occupation of the Constantinople Embassy, it has already been pointed out that the period was one of comparative calm, and that there were no sensational questions to be dealt with. Unlike some of his predecessors and successors, he had not been instructed to make any change in the policy pursued by the British Government towards Turkey, and it had not fallen to his lot to be forced to adopt a threatening and aggressive attitude. Consequently, his experiences of Constantinople were agreeable and unexciting; his relations with the Turkish Ministers and with his colleagues had been singularly amicable, and he left the place with regret. It would be affectation to claim that his stay there left any permanent mark upon our policy in the East, but there were two minor matters in which his influence made itself felt. Entertaining a profound dislike to intrigue and tortuous methods, he made it his business to diminish as much as possible the so-called Dragoman system and to substitute for it a different and more open method of transacting the business of the Embassy. The other matter related to the practice of extorting favours and concessions from the Porte. It has always been the tradition of British diplomacy in the East, and it may perhaps be said to be unique in this respect, that the influence of the Ambassador should not be used to procure concessions, honours, or favours on behalf of British subjects. Upon this point he carried the principle of abstention to almost extravagant lengths, as the following incident shows. The daughter of a gentleman connected with the Embassy was about to be married, and the newspaper La Turquie announced that the Sultan had sent a magnificent present. The announcement caught the eye of the vigilant ambassador, who immediately wrote to the father:
I think you will do well to take steps to remove the unfavourable impression which this paragraph cannot but make. There can be little if any difference between such a present and one made directly to yourself; and the most friendly course I can take is to advise you to prevent the acceptance of it, and to have a paragraph inserted in the Turquie explaining that it has not been retained.
This must have been singularly unpleasant for all parties, and it is quite likely that the Ambassador found himself morally bound to compensate the lady by making an equally magnificent present as a substitute for the Sultan's rejected gift.
An application to support a concession to Mr. Brassey for the construction of a railway from Constantinople to Adrianople met with no favour at all. He explained that he was constantly applied to in order to support all sorts of concessions for railways and similar undertakings, and that his practice was to reply that it was not his business to meddle in such matters unless instructed to do so by the Foreign Office, and that concessionaires should therefore in the first place address themselves to the Home Government. 'The fact is that there is often much dirty work connected with the management of such matters at the Porte, and I wish to be clear of them.' Over and over again there appears in his letters the emphatic statement that he 'refuses to take part in the dirty work by which European speculators are apt to get concessions out of the Turks.'
It would not be difficult to find arguments against this attitude, which in these days of increased international competition it would be impossible rigidly to maintain, but the views which prevailed fifty years ago with regard to the abstention of British diplomacy from every species of concession mongering probably did more than anything else to inspire Orientals with a belief in our integrity as a nation.
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