LORD SALISBURY'S ATTITUDE.
TORD SALISBURY'S speech at Guildhall was not in itself 4 supremely interesting, but there was a tone of calm self- possession, of perfect equanimity, about it which we appreciate much more than we do any of its special observations. Lord Salisbury was not elated, and was not depressed. He made no attempt to exaggerate the little successes on which the Foreign
• Office has some right to congratulate itself, and of which the newspapers certainly make too much. It is satisfactory to find Ayoub Khan despairing of raising any effective revolt in Afghanistan, and preferring to trust himself to the magna- nimity of Lord Dufferin, rather than to look out for a new asylum elsewhere. It is satisfactory to have made nn arrangement with Russia as to the Afghan Boundary which is as welcome to the Ameer of Afghanistan as it is to the Czar. And it is satisfactory to have come to an under- standing with France concerning the Suez Canal and the New Hebrides. But, after all, it is still more satisfactory to see that Lord Salisbury is not proud of these small successes, that he regards them as what they are, so many riddances of causes of irritation, but not as shedding lustre on our diplomacy and entitling the Foreign Office to the deep gratitude of the nation. These little achievements are evidence that Lord Salisbury is doing good and quiet work ; and the tone in which he speaks of them is one that proves him not to be at all inclined to overestimate the importance of that good and quiet work. And really, in these days of exaggeration and bombast, it is more important to have the evidence that our Ministers do not glorify themselves for petty successes, than even to have the evidence that those successes have been achieved. Lord Salisbury is not puffed up. He is aware that what he has done is little more than what he had a good right to expect to be able to do ; and we have naturally much more hope that a Minister who does not glorify himself for these small achievements will do something great, than we could have if he seemed inclined to rest on such trivial laurels as he has fairly earned.
And it is just the same,—and it is still more satisfactory that it should be the same,—as regards Lord Salisbury's attitude towards the more difficult and critical endeavours of his Government. He is neither disposed to overrate what he has achieved in Ireland, nor to lament himself over the enormous difficulties of the task before him. He is not elated, and he is not dismayed. He knows that it takes a long time to re-establish order by such means as Parliament has alone sanctioned, in a country so deeply disorganised as Ireland. But he does not make too much of the difficulty. Unhappy as the condition of things in Ireland is, it is quite competent for the United Kingdom to pursue her way in tranquillity, even though Ireland is suffering from the natural consequences of the favour which is shown by the people to illegality and crime. The United Kingdom must feel, and ought to feel keenly, the evil of a thoroughly disaffected and partially disintegrated Ireland ; but it does not in the least follow that any heroic remedy is possible, or that if no heroic remedy is possible, we ought to invent kill-or-cure remedies which are indefinitely more likely to kill than to cure. We can afford to go on bearing, and alleviating by every appliance in our power, the disaster of a disloyal and disturbed Ireland, without insisting on jumping out of the frying-pan into the fire in order to show our impatience. And it is Lord Salis- bury's equanimity in indicating this that we find so well expressed in his speech. He does not make too much of Ireland, while he is fully awake to the misery of its condition. He is willing to be patient, and sees, indeed, that nothing but patience and firmness can be of any real use. He is patient not only with Ireland, but with the Liberals who are doing so much to harass his Government. He condemns them, but he condemns without excitement. He avoids Mr. Balfour's only mistake in attacking his great opponent too savagely. He feels that what is wanted is a return to the calmer had sedates manner of former statesmen, and he himself sets the example. He takes the tone of a Minister who can afford to wait, and who intends to wait, and who will give no excuse to any one for exciting and irritating language. If Ireland is not disposed to take her proper part in the larger life of the United Kingdom, and is eager to spoil that life as a whole if she cannot get her way, nothing is so likely to bring her to a better mind as the evidence that she cannot spoil it as a whole, and that all she can do with perfect success is to spoil her share in it. Great patience is requisite to bring this home to Ireland, bat Lord Salisbury seems in the mood to use that patience. He will exert all the power the law gives him to repress disorder in Ireland, but he will not rave against destiny, even if it proves that it has not given him enough, and that the lawless party have still much mischief left in them. That is a calamity, but it is a calamity which Lord Salisbury's Government has no power to prevent. We must often let even our best friends "dies their weird" without interfering, simply because inter- ference would do nothing but harm ; and still more is this the case with those who are not exactly either friends or foes, but partly one and partly the other, like the Irish people at the present time. Not, of course, that we would willingly let Ireland suffer anything from which it is possible for us to save her. But it is not possible to save her from much of the suffering which she is no enduring, without her own cordial aid, and that she will not give, while spasmodic efforts to do what cannot be done are but means of aggravating the evil. What we admire in Lord Salisbury's speech is the patience and dignified fortitude with which he braces himself up to cure, indeed, what is curable, but also to endure what is for the present incurable. Perhaps the beat hope we have of a cure is to show that we are ready to endure what we cannot cure, and to endure it for a considerable time to come, without irritability and without convulsive efforts, to grasp at straws which would not save us.
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