HASSAN FEHMI’S MISSION.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1319, 26 March 1885, Page 3

HASSAN FEHMI’S MISSION.

With regard to the actual objects ef Hassan Felimi Pasha’s mission to London, the Yienna correspondent of the Daily Telegraph gives the following information;— For some time past Russian diplomacy at Constantinople has been endeavouring, on behalf of the Czar, to induce the Sultan to conclude a secret treaty with Alexander 111., whereby the latter would undertake to lend Turkey armed assistance in case of either domestic or foreign complication. What would be required of the Sultan in exchange was loft an open question in the Russian proposals. The advances of the Russian Embassy—which were made at the Palace, not at the Porte- were listened to with sufficient interest to sneourage a further, demarche in the same direction. Accordingly the Czar addressed an autograph letter to Abdul Hamid, formally proposing a personal treaty of alliance, the details of which were to be subsequently debated, but the principal advantage of which, so far as the Sultan was concerned, was a promise of effective aid in case of trouble at home or abroad. Since the late war, however, the Sultan has shown himself suspicious of Russia’s protestations of friendship. He is far too shrewd to accept amicable assurances from St, Petersburg for mere than they are worth. Moreover, the English Governient, who, it may be taken for granted, had a fair inkling of what was going on, wisely sought a rapprochement with Turkey, and held out the prospects of xheir recognising in some more tangible form than herelofor# the Sultan’s sovereignty over Egypt. The Sultan and his confidential advisers did not hesitate long. In the absence of Lord Dufferin’s successor they decided to send a special envoy to London, whose mission, to speak without diplomatic circumlocution, is simply to see what can be done. Hassan Fehmi Pasha will, it is stated, therefore place before Lord Granville all that has taken place between the Russian Embassy at Constantinople and the Palace, including, no doubt, the autograph letter from the Czar to Abdul Hamid. Lord Granville will then be asked to what extent Her Majesty’s Gpvermpent are disposed tq recognise the Sjultan’s rights in Egypt, and what was really implied by certain statements recently made by Lord Granville to the Sultan’s representative in London. Such is briefly Hassan Fehmi’s mission to London. The above disclosures may not be to the taste of the different parties concerned ; but the correspondent says his information is such an unexceptionable source that there cannot be the slightest doubt as to its accuracy.