ENGLAND'S POLICY.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 6710, 31 May 1900, Page 2

ENGLAND'S POLICY.

INDEPENDENCE TO BE FOR

FEITED

London, May 30. In the course of a speech last night at a dinner given by the Conseryative Club Lord Salisbury paraphrased a speech delivered* by him at the end of last year in which he declared that " Great Britain sought no territory in South Africa."

" It was no good," remarked his Lordship, "to say that a desire for territory led us into this war—that was one of the atrocious calumnies spread under the favouring influence of Dr Leyds." " The desire of the Imperial Government had been," he proceeded to say, " to stop oppression."

The context of the words used in the speech under review showed, said the speaker, that he was unpledged to such terrible sacrifices as had been implied. Continuing, the Prime Minister asserted that war would never recur in South Africa. No shred of the former independence of the Republics would remain.

So far as the terms of settlement were concerned they largely depended on the temper and attitude of the enemy in tha future. They had so acted in the past that every severance of class and race had been intensified by every measure they had taken.

Reconciliation would, of courae. be difficult and would require much time to secure, but Great Britain would endeavour to cause recollections of the war to perish.

The traditional policy of seekins an appeasement of bitterness, and the attainment of affection and mutual co-opera-tion would be followed, in the hope that before many years had elapsed the affection uniting the South African colonies would be equally keen as that existing in Canada and Australia.