SPEECH BY LORD ROSEBERY.

Press, Volume LVIII, Issue 11152, 19 December 1901, Page 5

SPEECH BY LORD ROSEBERY.

ADVICE TO THE LIBERAILS. IMPERIALISTIC VIEW OF THE WAR. A VDFDICATION OF THE ARMY. United Press Association—By Electrio Telegraph—Copyright. (Received December 18th, 8.52 a.m.) LONDON, December 17. Lord Rosebery addressed a gathering of five thousand at Chesterfield, including prominent ex-Cabinet Ministers. He disclaimed any idea of solving the question of party unity, but intended to speak his mind and offer dispassionate advice to the Liberal party. Free from the Irish alliance it ought to inscribe on a clean slate that the policy of 1902 was not the poKey of 1892, and especially that fche party did not dissociate itself from the new sentiment of the Empire, which sentiment was not aggressive. Any statesman, however eminent, dissociating himself from that sentiment must not be surprised if the nation dissociates itself from him. He emphasised the views he expressed in July when he bade farewell to the political arena, and urged that the watchword of the nation ought to be "Efficiency J" He severely criticised the Government, and repelled the theory that there was not an alternative Government. Diseolution ought to be decreed aftez- peace had been secured. <He denounced the prating about British war methods being barbarous, vindicated the army, and condemned the Boer atrocities. Hβ upheld the proclamation of martial law and the stern and efficient prosecution of the war, to be followed by a passive policy of peace. Hβ would listen to overtures emanating from Kruger and the exiled Boer Government. The Boers were aware that their independence had gone, and were too shrewd to base other hopes on the crazy foundation of the utterances of a handful of people in Great Britain.

Lord Rosebery declared that be was dead against the recall of Lord MiLaer. He favoured amnesty so far as it was compatible with safety; also a commission of rough and ready administrators of the Indian type to help Lord Milner. He would lavishly re-stock the farms and grant immediate civil rights to the Boars, who would have to take a drastic oath of allegiance, but he would not immediately grant the new States representative government. Lord Rosebery further declared that bis policy was not on party lines. He was at the disposal of the country, and he appealed to the tribunal of public opinion and common sense.