The foreign policy of Earl Beaconsfield appears to be that of ensuring at all hazards the glory [unclear: and] supremacy of the British nation throughout the whole of the habitable world. The Russian, the [unclear: Turin] the Indian, and the African alike are to acknowledge the potency of the "Isle of the Sea." Britain sons are sent to slay and be slain. British treasure is lavished in despoiling and conquering [unclear: and] civilizing the nations and tribes of the earth. The "nation of shopkeepers" appears to be returning to its old instincts as a nation given up to conquest, at any and every cost of human suffering. The policy of the Premier of England has added large tracts of territory to the British dominions; through his tactics, the Kingdom of England is, for the first time in the history of the world, the home of [unclear: an] Empress of the vast regions of India. The wily statesman has solved the Eastern difficulty so far [unclear: a] to utterly break the power of the Turk's military supremacy in the East, while he and his countrymen command the purse-strings of the Sultan and his dependents. Recent events have shown that the one all-powerful representative of the crescent holds his throne only by the good-will of the nation [unclear: that] takes up the cross for its battle-cry. His power over Egypt is but nominal—the "Great Powers" [unclear: have] the Eastern tyrant under their feet, and it appears to be only a matter of a little time ere the corrupt rule of the East will be a thing of the past. Palestine, we are told, is mortgaged to the Rothschilds and that the Jews are returning to the land of their desires and traditions, the land of their hopes their native land—their "own land," after centuries of exile;—returning with a dim idea that, under Jehovah's guidance, England will protect them and establish them in the "Joy of all the Earth"—their pleasant land. Misery and dire distress, semi-starvation and consequent disease, death and woe in a thousand forms, are the portions of the bulk of the people, who are burdened with taxes to maintain the "glory" of this foreign policy! Onlookers will view with a keen interest the struggle at the coming elections between the Conservative and Liberal parties of Great Britain. On it depends great and momentous issues for the Empire. The colonies, though careless, are mightily interested in that contest for place and power. Should the Conservatives be again victorious, we may expect plenty more "foreign policy," of the exact kind we cannot forecast, but judging from past experience, it will no doubt be equally startling, if not perhaps so pleasant and beneficial; it were idle to speculate [unclear: on] the consequences of a "foreign policy" which would be disastrous to the best interests of the colonies, yet such an one is within the scope of probablities, and thoughtful men are wondering where it will all end. Perhaps, like some of our own statesmen, the "man with a mission" may advise the removal of the seat of Government to India! or, to be more in accord with them, probably to the metroplis of the South Island of New Zealand! No doubt the foreign policy of the Conservative Government of England is advantageous to the Colonies, in so far as, in upholding the prestige of the Empire, we are protected from foreign aggression. It is a notorious fact, that Mr. Gladstone's policy was to leave the Colonies, and all powers outside Great Britain, to stand or fall by their own strength. The struggle for power, therefore, between the two great political parties in England, is one of great moment to the peoples of the Empire distant from its centre. The Liberal programme, so far as at present enunciated, shows little to enamour the Colonies with it, however much the British and Irish taxpayers may desire it for purely local and selfish reasons. Lord Salisbury, in a recent speech at Manchester, made some very pertinent remarks in defending the present Government of which he is a member. As his utterances immediately affect the foreign possessions of the Crown, we make a few extracts as follow:—

"On the subject of Afghanistan, when first the recent news came to this country the extraordinary language used against me almost appalled me, and I began to think that so many excellent and omniscient persons could not possibly have used all this language of me unless in some way I deserved it; but I will submit as briefly as I can the real state of the case with respect to Afghanistan, and I think that you will see that Her Majesty's Government had no choice but to pursue the course into which they were led. How stands Afghanistan with regard to India? Some people talk of our splendid mountain frontier, as presented by the Suliman mountains. A mountain frontier is a splendid thing I quite admit, but on one condition, and that is, that the mountain belongs to you, or, at least, that the crest of the mountain belongs to you. But if the mountain from the top to the bottom, where it melts into the valley, belongs to some one else, and that some one else happens to be the person against whom you wish to protect yourself, I say, even in the presence of the distinguished military authorities you see assembled here this evening, that mountain position in that sense is the worst frontier you can possibly have. That was the state of things with respect to Afghanistan. As long as Afghanistan was in the possession of endless fighting tribes, with no particular connexion with any Power outside their borders, no doubt such a frontier was quite sufficient; but as time went on a great European Power advanced to Khiva and to the base of the Caspian Sea, and that to a very great extent modified the problem. And when we came into office we found this state of things in existence all over the world that wherever the enormous territories that own Her Majesty's rule bordered on the territories of any other Power, and in fact, wherever they did not, the Powers cheerfully received the representatives of Her Majesty at their Courts, and there was not one exception—barbarian or semi-civilized—wherever page 5 the English Government desired that its representatives should be received, with the solitary objection of Afghanistan, no objection was made throughout the world. Well in that exception from the practice of all nations there was no doubt something startling in itself. But if Afghanistan had been simply isolated it would have merely been an exhibition of churlishness, and we might have left the ruler of Afghanistan to sulk as much as he liked. But it was also obviously capable of another interpretation. It was possible that all the time he refused to receive our emissaries he was receiving the emissaries of others. It was possible that all the time intrigues were going on, and the result would ultimately have been to place Afghanistan practically in the power of a foreign potentate, and those mountains, constituting an adverse and hostile frontier, and frowning down upon the plains of India, would have been practically in the power of at least a rival, and possibly, a hostile empire. We very early came across indications which convinced us that the unfavourable view of Shere Ali's character was the correct one, and we were also sure that if it was not correct we should easily ascertain the truth by asking him to do as every other potentate in the world—civilized and uncivilized—does, and to receive an officer at his Court. Unfortunately, our orders were delayed. The Government of India was in the hands of a very able man, but a man not wholly sympathetic with ourselves, and the result was that a year and a half passed away before our orders could be executed, and during that time a great change came upon the political horizon. When our orders were issued everything spoke peace; when at last they were executed, the Servian invasion by Russia had commenced, and a strong probability of the Russo-Turkish war was patent to the world. I cannot help believing that if what we recommended had been done at once, the Ameer would have accepted our embassy, and all the evils which subsequently followed would have been averted; but that unfortunate delay destroyed and ruined everything. The opportunity was past, but the Ameer thought he saw a prospect of Russia and England going to blows, and he thought it was possible to defy us. Well, what reason did he give for refusing to receive an embassy from England? The reassn, if you read in the light of his subsequent conduct, is almost comical, especially when people ask you to believe in his sincerity. He objected to receiving the English embassy because it might force him to receive a Russian embassy. The very next year he received a Russian embassy and declined to receive an English one. We have since ascertained that he was in constant communication with the Russian authorities, and that the unfavourable view of his character was the right one. And was it to be wondered at? What sort of man was it whom we are blamed for not trusting? It was a man who had by solemn oaths, allured his own son to come and pay him a visit, and who then, breaking all those oaths, threw him into prison, and but for the interposition of the Indian Government would have put him to a cruel heath. That, however, was the man with whom we had to deal. We recommended to him strongly that he should receive an embassy, not at Cabul, because he said, and rightly said, that was a dangerous place, but at some other part of his dominions, and when he refused it we did not attempt to press it upon him by force. There was no threat or exercise of force. But a year after that negotiation was held a Russian embassy presented itself at his doors, was received with enthusiasm, was admitted to his Court, and remained there till our troops entered his country. I cannot conceive of any English authority who imagines that it would have been our duty to allow this chief, possessing a strategic position for India, to have received the embassy of an empire at that time hostile to, or at least in diplomatic conflict with, our own, and to refuse to receive ours altogether. If we had done so, Afghanistan would have been at the disposal of the embassy which he had received, and we, in the sight of Asia, should have acknowledged that our power was unable to cope with either that of Afghanistan or of Russia. Well, you know what happened—the war occurred, the Afghans were conquered; and when we came to negotiate terms of peace, we were disposed, as we had been before, rather to prefer Candahar or some other place, as the position which our embassy should take. Yakoob Khan insisted that we should send it to Cabul, for at Cabul he could fully protect himself. Whether that assurance has been belied simply by his incapacity or by some other worse quality, it is too early for me to decide. Everybody has joined in a tribute to the great merits of the unhappy Envoy who was destroyed by the mutinous troops, and has lamented the loss of his services to the Indian Empire. For the future it is too early for me to speak; we have not yet received full information from General Roberts or from the Viceroy of India, and we cannot at present indicate the precise policy in all its details which it would be our duty to pursue; but the policy in its main lines has not altered. It is defence, not dominion that we seek. We wish to defend the borders of our Indian Empire, and with that view alone every measure that we take will be devised. * * * When we are blamed for what has been done, or when the results of our foreign policy are questioned, it is fair to ask what our opponents would have done. We know something from their professions in the present and something from their performances in the past. Then we may judge of the way in which they would have dealt with the Eastern question by the way in which they dealt with the sudden claim of Russia to abrogate the Black Sea clauses in 1871. We may conclude that they would have allowed Russia to occupy Constantinople, that they would have then exacted from her an abstract statement that it is very wrong for a Power to occupy a town without being allowed to do so by the other Powers, and then they would have confirmed her in the possession of what she had gained. That is precisely what they did in 1871, and I see no reason for believing they would not have done it in 1878. With respect to Afghanistan, what policy do they propose? Lord Hartington tells us that we must retire behind our frontier—go back to this adverse mountain frontier which I have described to you. If General Roberts went out by the Khyber Pass, evacuating all that British valour during the past year has gained, I venture to predict that somebody else would walk in by the passes of the Hindoo Koosh, and that Afghanistan would become in peace a difficulty and in war a danger of the first magnitude to the Indian Empire. We have had other remedies. Sir William Harcourt tells us that we should have relied on a friendly Afghanistan—we should have relied for the dearest interests of our Indian Empire on the proposed friendship of the most perfidious nation that has ever existed on the earth. I have heard, though I have not seen it, that a very venerable organ of Whig opinion has recently announced that the proper defence of English interests in Afghanistan is to be confined to the action of the English page 6 fleet. Well, gentlemen, I feel sure that the electors of this country will not be blind to the gravity of the issue which events have placed before them. If they neglect the teaching of the past, they may have more exasperating legislation, separating class from class, and encouraging new enterprises again property and order. They may have more abdication of the proper position of England, and most trusting to isolation, and to the friendship or to the good-will of the Powers before whom they kneel All over the world we shall have masterly inactivity, except only if there should be some ancient institution to overthrow at home. 'I feel sure that the electors of this country will prefer the legislation which combines classes rather than that which separates them."