22 FEBRUARY 1902, Page 3

Of the points dealt with in the seven speeches delivered

by Lord Rosebery during what has been wittily called not a Rake's but a Spade's progress through Liverpool on Saturday last, we can do no more than notice the most salient. Touching on the Anglo-Japanese Treaty, he defended his reserve on the ground that he hesitated to throw up his bat on the first instant without knowing what he was throwing it up for. He assured his hearers, however, that even if he disapproved of the Treaty just as much as at present he approved of it, he would be very reticent in the expression of that disapproval, because it had been the one watchword of his political life to maintain continuity in foreign affairs. "So far as I am con- cerned, I have determined on this, that whatever our domestic differences may be, so long as life or power is left me, we shall maintain a united attitude abroad." That, with the proper limitations, which no doubt Lord Rosebery would make, is the sound attitude for an ex-Premier to assume.