Lord Salisbury has surpassed himself. We can recall nothing in
the history of the last eight years so full of malignant purpose as his speech of Thursday. Though informed that discussion was inexpedient, he declared that the Fleet had done nothing but " furnish a safe place from which British officers have been able to witness the painful and revolting spectacle of British subjects being endangered and slaughtered at the water's edge." The " Naval demonstration had de- monstrated nothing but the impotence of Great Britain and the feebleness of her Ministers." It is " not too much to say that upon those who sent that Fleet there, without the resolution to follow up the act with the force necessary to give effect to their policy,—that upon them lies the responsi- bility of the bloodshed which was caused by the passions which the presence of the Fleet provoked." To withdraw the Fleet would be humiliating ; but to leave it there to look on help- lessly, would be a deeper depth of humiliation. All this while the responsibility really rests upon Lord Salisbury, who estab- lished the Joint Protectorate, because he thought the French Government, urged by the Bondholders, would otherwise inter- fere alone.
