AT THE GUILDHALL.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1192, 4 January 1895, Page 20

AT THE GUILDHALL.

IMPORTANT SPEECH BY LORD ROSEBERY. GREAT BRITAIN'S FOREIGN RELATIONS. The state procession of the new Lord Mayor to the Law Courts, on the occasion of his being sworn in before the Lord Chief Justice on his assumption of office, took place on November 9th, and was celebrated with the accustomed pomp, says the London Times. Some portions of the route were profusely decorated, and there was a large assemblage of spectators. In the Lord Chief Justice's Court the Lord Mayor was presented by the Recorder to Lord Russell of Killowen, who congratulated him on his elevation to so important an office, and alluded to the long continuity of the custom observed that day and to the ancient traditions and great achievements of the City Corporation. The oath of office was then administered, and the civic procession returned to the Guildhall. At night the Lord Mayor and Sheriffs gave the customary banquet at the Guildhall, when a large and distinguished company of guests assembled. The Ministers present were the Premier, Lord Kimberley, Lord Tweedmouth, Earl Spencer, Mr Campbell-Bannerman and Mr A. Morley. Lord Spencer, responding for the Navy, said a great deal had been done during the past year to increase its strength. This was necessary to defend and protect the commercial interests of the country in every part of the globe, and it was a fact of which all might be proud that this policy of increasing the... Navy was taken out of the domain of party politics. Mr Campbell-Bannerman replied for the Army, and said that at no time in its history had it been more worthy of pi-aise than at present. Responding to the toast of “ Her Majesty's Ministers,'' Lord Rosebery, said:—

My Lord Mayor, My Lords, Ladies and Gentlemen, —I am deeply grateful to you, my Lord Mayor, for the terms in which you have proposed this toast, and for the way in which the company have responded to it. For what you have said of myself, I will only reply this—that I am indeed, as you have alleged, to the bottom of my heart convinced of the importance to this country and to the world at large that she should maintain her greatness abroad, a greatness which must also be founded on our happiness at home. (Cheers.) Nor am I insensible of the proud position I fill to-night in responding on this historic occasion in the place of so many famous predecessors for a toast so illustrious as this. My Lord Mayor, you have said that at the Guildhall on this occasion jou know nothing of domestic politics, and it is for that salutary reason, I presume, that you are accustomed on these occasions that the Minister who responds for this toast should look abroad and not at home. THE WAR BETWEEN CHINA AND JAPAN. Well, what is the prospect outside P The sky is not entirely clear, but the barometer is not falling. If the sky is not entirelyclear it is due chiefly to the disastrous war between China and Japan, in which England, as one of the greatest Eastern Powers, could not fail to be deeply interested. You know already that Her Majesty’s Government have not been prepared to lose any chance of making some progress towards a peaceful settlement of that war. We are determined to maintain that strict neutrality which should be the position of Great Britain in such a war. We cannot, on the one hand, forget that we have of late shown the most strong and tangible proof of our friendship to Japan by concluding a treaty with the object of a treaty revision which is what Japan has most had at heart, and which we are the first of the European Powers to give her ; and, on the other hand, we cannot forget that our frontier line with China is over 4000 miles in extent; that in recent and later years China has shown herself a friend of this country, and therefore in preserving a neutrality to both powers we have preserved a benevolent neutrality. In what way can we show that benevolence more than by attempting to secure the blessings of .peace ? And although wo have not as yet been successful, and in my opinion we had little right to hope to be successful, we do not repent any. efforts that we have made. In this delicate and difficult business we have acted hand in hand with Russia, the other Power mainly interested. (Cheers.) In any pacific means that would secure the termination of the war on terms honourable to Japan and not disastrous to China we would gladly join. In itself that cordial action with Russia is a fact over which we may rejoice. ENGLAND AND RUSSIA. I see in the papers advice given to the Government that we should on the melancholy occasion which has recently occurred seize the opportunity to amend our relations with Russia and enter into a cordial understanding with her. Her Majesty’s Government have anticipated that advice. (Cheers.) Ever since this Government has been in power our relations with Russia have been more cordial than I ever remember them to have been. We have, as nearly as'possible, I hope and believe, terminated the long-standing difficulty with regard to the limitation of our spheres in Central Asia, which removes in Asia, I hope, almost the last dangerous question that arises between the two Powers, and I confess I agree freely with the advice that has been given us. 1 agree with it to the extent, as my friend Lord Kimberley will confirm me in saying, of anticipating it, in the belief that if Russia and England can march with cordiality and without suspicion in Asiatic affairs, one great step towards the peace of the world w ill have been taken for ever. (Cheers.) After referring with sympathy to the death of the Czar, Lord Rosebery went on to describe, the present dangers to peace. He said; —

I do not say that the prospects of peace are anything but reassuring, but in reckoning on the future we have to remember hoiv nice is the balance in which the future of peace or war is weighed. I do not think that any here present, even in this gorgeous and representative assembly, can entirely realise, unless they have been behind the scenes, how difficult and how dangerous sometimes appears the task, not of preserving the nations from war, but of preservinga good understanding between them. There are three elements in the present situation which are not altogether reassuring in the interests of peace. One is those enormous armaments that roll up like snowballs, and snowballs which seem never.to end, and which are, I freely acknowledge, in their essence, being territorial armies, measures of defence and not of defiance; but there are in those great armaments some danger to peace itself. In the first place, there is the feeling that you cannot for ever perfect tools of great precision, cf great expense, without sometimes having the wish to test them and to use them ; and in the second place there is the still greater danger that the peoples who have to bear the burdens of those armaments, weary of the drain of blood and taxation that they involve, may some day say it will be better to put an end to this long-continued pressure and put all to the hazard of the die. What is the next danger, not, as I say, to peace, but to the good relations between nations? I am sorry to say that one of the great dangers to that good understanding is that mighty engine which we call the press. No one yields to me in admiration for the authority that it exercises and for the high-minded way in which," as a rule, that authority is exercised ; but I do not think • that the press itself, in the fierce competition which exists between different papers in order to obtain the latest and the most startling intelligence, sufficiently weighs what effect that intelligence may have on the great international understandings of the world. (Cheers.) I will give an example of what I am saying. Twice during the present year intelligence has come to England, and from a source which I for one cannot trace, that the New Zealand Government had some wish or intention to administer Samoa, or to send a delegation to Samoa to enquire whether it would be possible to administer it or not. Those reports go forth. Even the Government, on account of their sheer absurdity, does not think it necessary to contradict them. But, of course, any such rumour as that cannot but most prejudicially affect those treaty Powers with w r hom we are connected in Samoa. Eve-yone abroad is suspicious ; some of us at Home are suspicious; and we cannot complain of the suspicions of others ; but the moment a piece of news like that comes and is announced in that way, with all the. authority that the English press can give it, at once suspicions are raised of our good fath and good intentions which it is hot possible for all the • assurances of all the diplomatists completely to remove; (Cheers.) I would ask then the press to sift its intelligence a little before it gives ' it * authority. I would also instance that unhappy interview in which a responsible diplomatist in the employment of China was supposed to have poured forth some of the most foolish, some of the most illfounded, and some of the most improper opinions that ever • proceeded from an officials of any kind. (Laughter.) There is this also to be said. We do not complain of attacks either in the English or in the foreign press on the conduct of our public men. Those, after all, are -the commonplaces of daily life; but what I would wish to inspire in anyone connected with journalism who hears me to-niglit, and who cares at all about the largest object of serving his country in the truest way, is this—that in dealings with our differences with nations we should remember not so much the petty issues ; that divide us, but the large bonds which connect us. The one is as easy to recall as .the other, and in every respect infinitely more desirable. The last difficulty to--which I will refer is this. It is the danger ; of armed explorers. Armed exploration, has always existed from the time of Alexander the Great downwards, and I suppose. Alexander the Greasfc was the founder of the School. (Laughter.) But at this moment, in the continent of Africa especially, we are all liable to a real danger to peace from the aberrations of armed; exploration. An explorer used to be a mail who went out with a compass and a map and some tinned meat, and returned or was. eaten in the neighbourhoods to which he proceeded (laughter) ; bat the explorer of the present day goes out with large parties heavily armed, with blank treaties in his pocket; and proceeding into regions unknown comes back with his treaties-signed and sealed, possibly at considerable ex-, pense of bloodshed. Now I am not charging any nation particularly with the responsibility of armed, exploration, because all of us are compelled to engage in it, some for purposes of emulation and some for purposes of self-defence. But what I would say is this—that this exploration in these ; circumstances constitutes a real danger to European peace, which must exist, and must continue until the great Powers frankly recognise the sphere of influence of each other in Africa and until that is relegated from the region of the uncertain to the region of the certain and of the known. All these questions are of vital interest to us. A “ CONSERVATIVE ” FOREIGN POLICY. For our foreign policy —I will not use the adjective I am going to use in a party ’ sense but in a non-party sense—our foreign policy is a strictly conservative policy (cheers) ; and by that I do not mean that it belongs to the Conservative party, for it i has nothing whatever to do with either party; but it is a conservative foreign policy for this reason that we wish things to remain as they are (cheers), that we

covet nothing abroad and wo want nothing abroad ; and for that reason—the best of all reasons—wo wish to keop things as they aro in the world, for wo know the great risk to poaco and to the disturbance of commerce that may ensue from any disturbance of the status quo. Formerly that was not so. Formerly we had a foreign policy which aimed at changing several Governments, at modifying several Governments, at advising several Govornmonts. All that has disappeared. Not all the Governments in the world aro good; but there are many fewer bad Governments, and what few bad Governments remain aro infinitely better than they wore. In any case, it is not worth our while, with our extended interests all over the world, to attempt by advice, however well meant, or by interference however, in our opinion, opportune, to disturb that state of things in which, after all, the British Empire is sufficiently prosperous. (Hoar, hear.) COLONIAL EXPANSION. Let. me say one word as regards the colouial expansion, whether by armed exploration or otherwise, that we have observed in other Powers. Our wish is for peace, as I have said, and I rejoice in the colonial expansion of other Powers because I believe that makes for peace. I believe that as other Powers understand what colonising is they vVill say it makes for peaco. Colonies are like children ; they are pledges given to fortune; and every Power that engages in this now passion for colonising will find out later two things. First, that colonising is a decentralising influence as regards our military power and makes for commerco ; and, secondly, that no colony can bo made directly a remunerative affair to the mother country. A colony may be and has boon made by ourselves directly advantageous by the bonds of commerce and of sympathy, but commerce and sympathy in every part of the world can only spell peace. Now, I fear I have detained you at too great length (“ No, no ”) ; but I could not help being grateful to an assembly which must, l am aware, very largely and in many different degrees differ from Her Majesty’s Government in domestic politics for the encouragement they have given them to-night a 3 being possibly ill-advised, but honest, servants of their country. (Hear, hear.) You, my Lord Mayor, have to-night quoted a passage which I should be the most unnatural parent if I failed to recognise. (Laughter.) I wrote that passage about the difficulties of realising one’s ideal and of dealing with circumstances and men some four years ago. Nothing in those four years has tended in the slightest degree to weaken tho impression I then formed. But it is the large policy and nature of Englishmen to make allowances for their public men. They know that we cannot reach our ideal ; they know some at least of the difficulties with which we have to grapple ; and they know, as the late Mr Jowett said to a reoalcitrant undergraduate, “Wo are none of us infallible, not even tho youngest of us.” ? (Laughter and cheers.) But we recognise our fallibility, and that recognition is at least a symptom of honest endeavour to realise our capacity for your service. We may be loss capable than the Ministers who preceded or the Ministers who may succeed us; but wo yield to none in our determination to servo this* country, . to serve all and every class in this country (cheers), to maintain not merely the internal, but the external interests of this glorious Empire, of which we realise the proud traditions. And I say this, my lords and gentlemen, not without remembering the place in which I say it—if I toll you not tho truth to-night I can see (pointing to tho monument of Chatham facing him) the eagle eye of Chatham looking down iipon me; and I can see on my right the form of Pitt, who spoke his last and most memorable speech in this ball. Though we cannot boast as he did that wo have saved Eng-

land by our exertions, it will not bp the* ' fault of our exertions if Great Britain while we are at the helm suffers any detriment in honour or in prosperity. (Loud cheers.) Among subsequent speakers wore the Lord Chief Justice and the Lord Chancellor. COMMENTS OF THE FRENCH PRESS; The Paris Dt'bats and Temps thank Lord Rosebery for his tribute to M. Carnot, and for liis desire to settle African questions with Prance. They are particularly struck with, his tone towards Russia, and the Temps believes that an understanding with the latter would dispel England’s hankerings for the Triple Alliance. This result, it remarks, would bo the best preliminary for an arrangement with Prance. SAMOA. The sources —which Lord Rosebery, in his Guildhall speech, declared himself unable to trace —of the intelligence to the effect that “ the New Zealand Government had some wish or intention to adminster Samoa/’consist, adds the Times, of telegrams in April last from Lord Glasgow, the Governor of New Zealand, and Mr Seddon, the Premier, declaring that the New Zealand Government was anxious to have the Samoa treaty abrogated and to undertake the administration of the islands. About the same date the Governments of Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania instructed their A gents-G oneral to support the proposal of the New Zealand Government. On the Ist May the entire Cabinet of Victoria drew up an official memorandum to Lord Hopetoun, the Governor, in which they urged that compliance with the demands of Now Zealand would bo to the advantage of all the colonies. The correspondence continued betweon the AgontsGeneral and the Colonial Office from the 20 th April to the 17th of May.. Lord Rosebery writes, saying that the remark attributed by him to Dr Jowett should have been ascribed to Dr Thompson, tho late master ?f Trinity College, Cambridge,