Meanwhile the agitation for the deposition of the Sultan is continued, and will doubtless gain strength from the news received to-day of the massacre of two thousand more Armenians at Eguin, especially as it has now become abundantly clear that Lord Sslisbury's Government welcome the agitation as strengthening their hands. Of course the Turcophile section of the Conservative Party still deprecate the agitation on_the ground that it will hamper Lord Salisbury in its action; but the argument receives no support from the members of the Government, and the Turcophile patty has dwindled down to a very small ly, with Sir Ellis Ashmend-Bartlett, Sir Howard Vincent, and Mr. "Tommy" Bowles as its most prominent members. As for the Liberals, there is among the more enthusiastic and less cautious members a strong feeling of resentment against Lord Rosebery for his continued insistance upon the danger of provoking a European war. The influence of Mr. Gladstone is still undoubtedly far stronger with the Liberal Party than that of Lord Rosebery. On Monday Sir William Harcourt, who has maintained sphinx-like silence since Parliament rose, is to address his constituents, and his speech is looked forward to with much interest. If, as is expected, his views approximate to those of Mr. Gladstone rather than those of Lord Rosebery, some no doubt will attribute the fact to his jealousy of the noble lord who was put over his head when Mr. Gladstone retired. But no such motive can be ascribed to Mr. Asquith, who declared in a speech last night that the time has arrived when it has become the duty of Europe, acting possible by the collective authority of the great Powers, acting if that be not possible by fewer, and even by one of them, to put an end by force to the mis-government and the massacre by the Sultan of his Christian subjects. The solution which Mr. Asquith proposes is that which everybody hopes for—an understanding with Russia, If that were obtained very little practical consideration would be paid to the views of any other Powers. What everybody is anxiously awaiting now is a statement of Lord Salisbury's Government, " With every desire in the world not to embarrass the Ministry," says the Westminster Gazelte, "to-night, the time would certainly seem to have come for some declaration on the point,"
Interest in the Soudan campaign is' suspended by the announcement that for the present there is to be no advance beyond Dongola; while in Rhodesia, although constant little fresh outbreaks show that the rebellion is not yet absolutely crushed, the re-establishment of order is now only a matter of time, So far as great public questions, are concerned therefore the Eastern Question absorbs attention, and even at' party political gatherings proctcally nothing else is talked And as the Liberals. declare. that they are resolved not to make this a party question or to attack the Government in regard to it, we have quite an exceptional truce td party politics. The release of the dynamiters still occasions some grumbling, but this comes from supporters of the Government, and not from their opponents. Educationists exercise their minds to some extent on the Education Bill which the Government have promised to bring in, but the general public are quite content to wait and see what the Bill is like. In all probability it will be a much less contentious measure than that of last year.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.