The Lord-Mayor of Belfast on Wednesday entertained Lord Dufferin at
dinner, after which the retiring diplomatist made an admirable and obviously well-considered speech. He refused to turn "any Röntgen rays upon the doors of the Cabinets of Europe," but gave his audience two of the general results of his experience. One is that England is not popular, first, because Continental statesmen and peoples live in a sort of agony listening to the tramp of hostile armies on their frontiers, and cannot bear to see this country sitting quietly on the fence apparently indifferent to their dangers. The other is the passion for Colonial expansion which has struck both Germany and France, and induces Germans and Frenchmen alike to feel that England is always in the way. The second result of Lord Duf- ferin's experience—which has been wider as Ambassador, as constitutional ruler in Canada, and as non-constitu- tional Viceroy in India, than that of any living man —is that, in spite of all progress, the world is still governed in the main by force. The nation, therefore, which claims a great position, must prepare its forces, and we 3honld add, though Lord Dafferin does not, must be ready to use them on adequate occasion. The speech was a very fine one, and we hope it will not be, as Lord Dufferin declared it should be, absolutely "the last."
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