Colonel Loyd-Lindsay on Tuesday made a speech to his Berkshire
constituents, which contained a remarkable assumption. He intimated that the Emperor of Russia had not wished to enter Constantinople, but that he was nearly overborne by the military party, and that the despatch of the British Fleet to the Bosphorus strengthened his hands. It is true, we believe, that Russian statesmen are afraid to acquire Constantinople, as they think it would be the grave of the autocracy ; but a military Sovereign is hardly strengthened by the appearance of a menace. Colonel Loyd-Lindsay condescended to repeat the old nonsense about the superiority of the Balkans as a frontier to the Danube, as if the Turks in holding the Danube had given up the Balkans, and to declare that our repre- sentatives in the Berlin Congress "carried eloquence to its highest pitch." That is quite a new description for diplomatists. Does Colonel Loyd-Lindsay really think that a Congress is an Assembly, or that oratory ever excited any feeling in a diplomatist but weariness ? The test of success in negotiations is result, and we see the result in an anarchical Turkey provoking Austria to- war, a betrayed Greece threatening Turkey with war, and civil war raging in every province of Turkey except Bulgaria, where we had least of our own way. Colonel Loyd-Lindsay believes that the Government will succeed equally well in Afghanistan,, and we do not disagree with him.
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