21 JANUARY 1871, Page 2

Mr. Otway has made a curious speech to his constituents

at Chatham. He evidently wanted very much to tell them why he quitted the Foreign Office, and kept leading up to the subject, but finally resolved to keep his explanation for Parliament. He told them, however, that he departed because of a difference of opinion on a point "on which the honour, interests, and perhaps safety of the country depend," and that it was not an Italian point, he sympathizing with Italy, though he evidently thought Italians silly for selecting a "malarious and ecclesiastical " city as their capital. To judge by the drift of his speech, his " difference " would seem

to have arisen on the question of " intervention," for after con- demning Count Bismarck for the bombardment of Paris, and for a brutality of speech which " would never be forgotten or forgiven while the Seine and the Rhine should flow," he declared that it was "idle" to say the intervention of-England, Austria, and Italy would not be listened to, and that not to offer it was " a pusil- lanimous policy." That, coming from Mr. Otway, is an unmis- takable utterance.