Lord Salisbury made a speech at Derby on Monday which
it surprises us to find rather depreciated by his own friends as containing nothing. It strikes us, on the contrary, as one of the most effective he ever delivered. It was, of course, most cautious about Foreign affairs; but no one can mistake its meaning, or the care with which the Foreign Secretary warned his country.
men that great calamities might reasonably be expected. As far, be said, as diplomatic information went, there was no ground for the terror which had seized the newspapers of Europe; but " it is impossible that these vast armaments, constantly growing, can continue to watch each other without creating some well- founded solicitude." With "these great, heavy, overcharged clouds, charged with the electricity of war, coming closer and closer, who shall be bold enough to prophesy that at any given time the thunderclap shall not ensue ?" The rulers of Europe are anxious for peace, but great waves of popular sentiment are sweeping over the nations, "and no man knows what impulse they may give to the men whom they seem to obey, but whom they in reality govern." It has been said this sentence is weak, because the next war will be a rulers' war; but we dispute that judgment. It is the Panslavista who are urging the Czar, perhaps even threatening him ; it is the Hungarians who impel the Emperor Francis Joseph ; and it is the Germane, moved by intolerable fear of what may occur when Prince Bismarck passes away, who are persuading him to seize any opportunity. The Slav cloud and the German cloud are swinging nearer and nearer, and though we may talk of this man's intrigue and that man's folly, the explosion will be like some operation of Nature.
