BRITISH POLICY.

Waikato Argus, Volume III, Issue 209, 13 November 1897, Page 3

BRITISH POLICY.

SPEECH BY LORD SALISBURY. London, November 10. Lord Salisbury, in the course of his speech at the Lord Mayor's Guildhall Banquet, said the Queen had desired him to express her deep and abiding sense of tlio marvellous display of affection and loyalty of her subjects in connection with her jubilee He eulogised the wonderful campaign of tho Anglo-Egyptian Army in the Soudan, and said Sir 11. H. Kitchener, the Sirdar of the Egyptian Army, deserved unmeasured honour for his conduct of the campaign. Dealing with 11m question of Africa generally he said protracted friendly negotiations wero proceeding with France, Germany, Italy and Portugal, respecting Africa, which was the plague of the Foreign Office. Great Britain's objects in Africa were purely businesslike, and she wished to open up a highway antl markets, thus enabling the carrying on, unchecked, of the trade along the Niger, the Nile, and the Zambesi England had shown due consideration to her neighbours' 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 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 evjrj thing 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 a possible peaceful federation of Europe.