10 FEBRUARY 1877, Page 2

We have gone so fully into Lord Derby's speech elsewhere,

that here we need only say that he declared emphatically that Lord Beaconsfield's Guildhall speech had not been read by the Emperor of Russia when he made his Moscow declaration (a circumstance which, by the way, makes the Moscow declaration all the stronger and more significant) ; that he repudiated the charge of having changed his policy ; that he really reverted very much to his old policy of laissez-faire, dropped for a moment only under the impulse of the public feeling of the autumn ; and that what he seemed most to plume himself on—was the loss of time,—gain of time, he called it,—absorbed by the Conference, which had given Russia time to hesitate and a decent excuse for getting out of the matter, if she so wishes it,—which is true, no doubt, only that it gives her a still better excuse for going on, if she doesn't wish to get out of it, and that Lord Derby forgot to say.