To Lord Salisbiry's speech' at Guildhall on the 9th of November all England and a great part of the rest of the world were Tooking for an explanation of the. haste with" which' Great Britain was bringing her armaments up to the highest-pitch of efficiency. Naturally enough,, the' London daily papers take very various views of the speech. The Times the next morning said Lord Salisbury. notes that'some think we contemplate a descent upon Syria, others that ing to seize upon Crete, and. others, again, that we are about to proclaim a protectorate of Egypt. The two first designs are too absurd to provoke anything but a smile, but the mention of Egypt was received with significant cheers by the representative audience at the Guildhall, which drew from the Prime Minister the remark that if some of those before him were in-power they would evidently be disposed to declare a protectorate. The Government, however, has no intention of doing anything of the kind, Lord asbury thinks that we may very well rest satisfied with the present position of affairs, Ho admits that it is not entirely a comfortable position. "He admire that friction may occasionally arise in the fature as it has arisen in the past. But, looking at the matter all round and considering the feelings of other people as well as our own, he holds that we may reasonably rest content for the present with the existing condition of affairs, The Standard said Lord Salisbury confined himself to suggestive generalization; he did not go into the particulars, Indeed, the. speech all through was remarkable as much for what it did not sey as for what it did. It will be noticed that no allusion whatever was made to the Bahr-el-Ghazal; the name was: not even moutioned. We can hardly assume that' th reticence was the result of accident or forgetfulness. There may be sufficiently cogent reasons which rendered it advisable for the Foreign Secretary to refer to the territorial question in Africa only in the moot distant when Lord Salisbury abandoned his ney tive argument, and'entered upon a positive defence of the naval propsrations, tio lly reluctant to go into faint with tic present aspect of the, the partial mobilisaworld, In spite Crar's Rescript. we by no means on the threstiold of an age of ce. On the contrary, new conditions of ger and disquiet have arisen withi present year... The peace of may be preserved if Great Britain is.in'a Fmpunity to the transgeestor. This ition to see that it ie not broken with suf: ficient; indeed, an unimpeachable, tion of bringing our Meote and our defensive forces to the highest, condition of efficiency they are capable of attaining, The Daily News wrote Lord Salisbury is a Peace Minister condemned by the perplexities of the time to live under the shadow of war, The immediate cloud of anxiety is ps he foresees o future full of. danger. This, we think, is the general impression which bia ch will make upon the country. It is significant of the present temper, if not of the nation at large, at any rate of the City of London, that Lord Salisbury's more pacific and reassuring passages involved him in some misunderstandings with his audience. They wanted. blood and thunder, coercion and aggression, and more than once they cheered to0 soon. If Lord Salisbury meant anything by his remarks on Americ, they point to somewhat serious situation, 10. meant nothing, he was very ill advised to indulge at so sensitive a time snd in so public " manner in o St ofthe diplomatic blues, His remarks, on the ipt were disappointing.
"the times are das and in'ono eons
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.