Speech by Lord Salisbury.

Opunake Times, Volume VII, Issue 333, 16 November 1897, Page 4

Speech by Lord Salisbury.

London, November 12.

Lord Salisbury, in the course of a speech at the Lord Mayor's Guildhall banquet, said the Queen had desired him to express her deep and abiding sense of the marvellous display of affection and loyalty of her subjects in connection with the Jubilee. He eulogised the wonderful campaign of the Anglo Egyptian army in the Soudan, and said Sir H, Kitchener, Sirdar of the Egyptian Army, deserved unmeasured honor for his conduct of the campaign. Dealing with the question of Africa generally, he said that protracted friendly negotiations were proceeding with France, Germany, Italy and Portugal respecting Africa, wnich was the plague of the Foreign Office. Great Britain’s objects in Africa were purely business-like, and she wished to open up highways and markets, thus enabling the carrying on of unchecked trade along the Niger, and Nile, and Zambesi. England bad shown due consideration to her neighbors’ claims in Africa, but such consideration had a limit, and she could not allow her plain rights to be overridden. He defended Great Britain’s adhesion to the Concert of the Powers in regard to the Eastern question, as by acting with the other Powers she had prevented the terrible calamity of a European war. Short of using force, everything had been done to prevent Greece carrying out her recent suicidal policy. He declared that any attempt by a single Power to settle the Eastern Question would have decimated Europe. The Concert of the Powers, the Premier added, contained the germ of possible peaceful federation of Europe. The French and German newspapers commenting on Lord Salisbury’s Guildhall speech speak of it as conciliatory and pacific.