Sir Horace Rumbold, ex-British Ambassador to Austria, has caused a sensation by an article which he has just contributed to the "National Review " under the title of "An English Tribute to the Emperor Francis Joseph." He shows that the Austro-Hungarian Emperor stood our firm friend throughout the Boer war; and in so far as ho has confined himself to this purpose his article is unex-captionable. But when he goes on to declare his firm belief that the Germans "continue to be potentially our most unrelenting and dangerous foes," and express grave doubts of the German Emperor's "wish to act on the square as 'a true friend and would-be ally, loyally trying to stem the anti-British tide," he certainly lays himself open to the charge of grave indiscretion as an ex-Ambassador. Of course the anti-German party, to which the "Times" has allied itself, has nothing but praise for the article; but the matter is far too serious to be considered lightly. It is of course to Russia that the anti-German party would have us look for a friendly understanding, since Austria, however well disposed, could be of little assistance to us; and among the Governments as apart from the peoples of the great Powers Russia is the only one which failed to act squarely with us during the war. It has just transpired that on the 6th of February, 1900, in the dark days of our trouble in South Africa, Russia proposed to appoint an agent at Cabul. And it is declared on what I have reason to know'to be very high authority that this was "the abortive culmination of a very serious military enterprise on the part of the Gorernment of the Czar which caused our Government no small amount of anxiety in the early days of the South African war." There seems some reason to believe that the Czar's Ministers acted without consulting him, and that they afterwards received a tap on the knuckles from him; but whether the Czar would have had the will or the power to check his Ministers if things had gone wrong with us in South Africa may well be doubted.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.