The most important events, as far as we are concerned, of the first week in April were the statements made in Parliament by the Duke of Devonshire and Mr, Balfour. The Times begins its leading article by saying Balfour in the House of Commons and By th The statements made yesterday by Mr.
uke of Devonshire in the House of Lords will at least. partially remove the anxiety with which this country has wit course of recent events in China, 8 it is true, that the excellent princi down by the Government as the their policy "in the Far Enst have not been applied with entire success in all parts of the Chinese Empire. They show that in the state of things which was allowed to come to pass, not altogether without the fault of Ministers, such success was haps impracticable except by action of a ind which might not have been justified by the interests more immediately at stake. They do not declare with the clearness and the precision that could be wished by what means the Government propose to avert in regions where our interests are of ne moment a repetition of the action on the part of others which in Manchuria has placed the equality of commercial opportunity at the mercy of a strongly protectionist State. Lord, Chinrles Beresford spoke with perhaps unnecessary dluntness when he declared his inability to pt, faith in aay Russian promises on this ead "if they were twenty fathoms long," but there can be no doubt that a good many sensible people agree in their hearts with him in thinking so far as extensive regions in North China are concerned, ' the open door is very like a brick wall now," or at any rate may be so at no very distant date. Gri the other hand, the weighty language used by Mini lors show that the Cabinet ar absolute necessity. of proservin, ight of free access to the markets of Central and Southern China. The concessions to Franco which our Peking correspondent announces this morning cannot but strengthen their consciousness that we are_no more secure from the attempts. of other Powers in this region than we have been further north.
The general drift of the criticism in the Press is that the Government, in getting Weihaiwei, have done the best they could under the circumstances. The Daily Mail heads its article "A British Success," and
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.