Lord Rosebery has not been quite so successful as was
thought. Sir Edward Grey on Wednesday, in answer to .iuestions from Captain Bothell, was obliged to deprecate discussion, inasmuch as the Pamir question and the Siamese question had neither of them advanced to the point at which secrecy is no longer beneficial. That is by no means an agreeable intimation, The importance of the Pamir dispute has, no doubt, been greatly exaggerated, as an invasion of India from that side is next to an impossibility, and we have in Chitral a watch-tower which nothing can escape,—a tower, too, occupied by Captain Younghusbaud, one of the keenest and most cautious of the younger Indian diplomatists. The banging-on of the Siamese troubles is, however, a nuisance. There is never any knowing what a French agent will do if he sees a chance of advantage ; and, as a rule, he will say any- thing that seems to him convenient. So, no doubt, do other diplomatists ; but the Frenchman has a habit of thinking of his personal dignity, as if it were, at all events, one object of his country's existence. If the dispute could be closed, there would be less risk; but the present ruling idea of the French Foreign Office is to suffer no sore to heal till Egypt is evacuated.
