Mr. Cross's speech at Manchester on Tuesday was not among
his best. He was very much surprised at the imputation of heartlessness, concerning the Bulgarian atrocities, to "the Prime Minister and Lord Derby," and spoke of the " indignant expressions" of these two Ministers. We can only say that Lord Derby's indignant expressions were very tardy and rather mild, and that as for Lord Beaconsfield's, we never heard of any indignation at all, except his indignation against the indignation orators. Mr. Cross went over the usual ground to show that Lord Derby had only a choice of difficulties, and that he took a great deal of pains in choosing amongst them. Again, he took a great deal of credit for Lord Derby's very strong despatch about the reprisals for the atrocities, but that despatch always appeared to us either much too strong, or to require supplementing by mili- tary intervention to prevent it from doing positive harm. Alto- gether, Mr. Cross on foreign policy was not a success. He is only at home in the Home Office.
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