Since the Transvaal troable reached an acute stage Lord Salisbury has hardly opened his lips in_public, and his speech at the Guildhall Bangaet last night was, therefore, looked forward to with the keenest interest. And it was an admirably vigorous and at the same time. carefully restrained speech which he delivered. Unfortunately for him, he was deprived by the precipitancy of German officialdom of the one piece of important news which he had been reserving for his speech—the announcement of the Samoan agreement. T have it on very good authority that he had carefully arranged that tie official announcement of this agreement should not be made until after his speech; but Germany did not keep the secre® long and our Foreign Office was, therefore compelled to issue its version of the agreement on the eve of Lord Mayor's Day. But the Prime Minister was nevertheless able to make one subremely important declaration i ower will be permitted to interfere in any form in our conflict with the Transvaal "or dictate to those concerned in it, what its upshot shall be. Wo shall carry it through ourselves," he continued; "the terference of nobody else will have any effect on it—in the first-place, because we should not accept such an interference gladly, and in the second place, because I am convinced that no such idea is present to the mind of any Government in the world." This is, of course, a warning well as a pronouncement, and it has been carefully worded. It isan incontestable fact that, though no such idea may be present in the mind of any Government now, such an idea was present in the mind of Russia, in the person of Count Muravief, its' Secretary for Foreign Affairs, a week or two ago, and communications were made by him to other Governments on the subject. He is not now likely to repeat the blunder.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.