The Evening Star. PUBLISHED DAILY AT FOUR P.M. Resurrexi. WEDNESDAY, APRIL 29, 1885.

Thames Star, Volume XVI, Issue 5082, 29 April 1885, Page 2

The Evening Star. PUBLISHED DAILY AT FOUR P.M. Resurrexi. WEDNESDAY, APRIL 29, 1885.

G-b'eat Britain has never more thoroughly earned her adjective " great" in the whole course of, her career than at the present time. Thwarted and troubled on all sides—worried and annoyed ifrom sources where she least expected unfriendliness, not to speak of treachery—sue still holds her head supreme,, and is prepared fully to preserve her Empire—impugn it whoso lists. Many are the difficulties to be encountered by her in carrying out a thorough policy of any kind, more par • ticularly if it be one likely to interfere with any of those powers whose long-* lived privileges, going unrestrained, have caused them to consider themselves masters of the earth. Although the seat ©f the disease appears to be la Asia, any intelligent obserror of the movements taking place in Europe at the present time cannot fail to see that the trouble threatebed in the neighborhood of Afghanistan is only a presage of that now brewing throughout the European Continent. The genial Bismarck ia col by any meaus idle in the " uu«» " which is about to be coaaumuited|

and his utilisation of the various acucs-*" sories at his command are not by any means being lost sight of. It may be said that it will take a Great Britain—and only such a nation oould.doit—to successfully encounter and overcome tho trouble which now encompasses her and thoso she is concerned with. On tho one hand ; arises, imprimis, the all-important posses--1 sion of India: this in only threatened, ' but it must be defended. Secundus, , African interests must be preserved (these lie not only in the Soudan and Egypt, but further South)—but it is as well to stop ; colonial affairs are in the scalo, and all these things help to form the sum of a life when the great title of an Empire is borne in mind. Trouble in Canada has arisen, and added to her "Russian, Egyptian, and Cape annoyances, Great Britain has now surely her meed of trouble. France, for some reason best known to herself, appears to have shown a disposition to quarrel with one of^he best friends sho ever had, but France has ever shown an evidence of possessing a vacillating nature and an inclination to spurn the band that helped hor, so perhaps this small cup of ungratitnd.e may be passed. Yet, notwithstanding all this, and even allowing for the inglorious mistakes of statesmen, the stability of the Empire is fully guaranteed, nofcwithstand- ' ing even the blustering and braggadocio of—presumably—so great a personage as the Emperor of all. the Itussias. That the British' Empire will suffer a severe drain on its treasury by the • apparently peculiar method adopted by its present administrators of dealing with Foreign affairs there can bs, little doubt, but that the fault lies principally with her Chancellor and other Cabinet Ministers there is none. The weakest foreign and colonial policies., ever promulgated by a modern English'Cabinethave been produced by the present administration,and although many arguments as to what might have been, may be'produced, the solid fact remains that its colonial •> policy has been; a failure, and their foreign arrangements can speak for themselves. When all the excitement is over Messrs Gladstone and Co. may be able to offer a full and satisfactory explanation to those who have placed them in power, but although we long to hear it, we almost anticipate the reception of a series of well-built up excuses. i\