In the House of Lords on Tuesday the Address was
moved by the Duke of Bedford in a speech not only marked, as Lord Salisbury noted, by " the singular literary merit of its structure," but by a sense of real statesmanship. Instead of repeating the conventional nonsense usually talked about China and Russia, he boldly declared that it was not reasonable to expect that Russia would refrain from taking the advantages due to her 6. stupendous railway enterprise in Asia," and urged that we should recognise the fact that Russia must exercise a dominant influence over Northern China. Lord Kimberley, who followed the seconder, Lord Cawdor, made a regular Address-speech, criticising the con- duct of the Government point by point. He raised doubts as to whether the Soudan might not prove too great a strain on the British Army. There were dangers, too, inseparable from the occupation of a Mahommedan country by means of Mahommedan soldiers. No doubt there is always a certain danger of mutiny among negro troops, especially in peace- time, but Lord Kimberley does not seem to realise the advantage given to us by the reciprocal aversion that exists between the Fellaheen and the Soudanese troops. Lord Kimberley ended his speech with a not very conclusive criticism of the Government for the slowness with which the Powers had moved in Crete.
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