On the opening day of the session the centre of attraction was of course in the Lords, where the Marquis of Salisbury made' his first public speech since the crisis became acute, It was not a long speech, and it has since been entirely eclipsed by the great oration which Mr. Chamberlain delivered in the House of Commons last wight. But the keynote which Lord Salisbury struc been responded to by ull the Liberal leaders. It was most tersely expressed by Mr. Chamberlain as the view of the man in the street. With that great instinct of the British people in all time of crisis," he said, "the man in the street lias put aside technicalities and legal subtleties, and has gone to the root of the question. He knows perfectly well that we are going to war in defence of principles upon which his Empire has been founded, and upon which alone it can exist." The most interesting part of Lord Salisbury's speech was, however, his defence of the New Diplomacy. Lord Kimberley lind reiterated the frequent complaint that Mr. Chamberlain had endangered a peaceful solution by conducting the negotiations almost coram populo—by the premature publication of dispatches and the delivery of provocative speeches. The Prime Minister urged in defence thnt an English Minister thas to look almost every moment for the amount that he can command of that popular support which is the breath of life to all political movements of this age; and the British Minister who has to consider the state of affairs at the Cape and to sustain the cause of British supremacy has to conciliate, to retain, to encourage, and to push forward as much loyalty to her Majesty as he can command." "It is a strangely democratic theory for a conservative Prince Minister; and it is certainly open to the criticism passed upon it in the other House, that it. is an excellent method for a who ig beat ox wer, or who to take the same view of li," regards war as inevitable, but not a method which makes for peace.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.