Mr. Chamberlain visited the City on Thursday to receive a
complimentary address from the Lord Mayor and Court of Common Council, and met with a splendid welcome, the gathering in the Guildhall including nearly all the members of the Cabinet and leading representatives of every phase of City life. After the reading of the address Mr. Chamberlain acknowledged the honour done him in a dignified and striking speech. He declared that the Government had had two great national objects in view,—to maintain and establish beyond question British authority in South Africa, and to maintain the unity of the Empire. The war, which had confounded those prophets of evil who took an unwholesome delight in depre- ciating their country, had been supported by the conscience of the nation as a whole ; and, further than that, it had more impartial authority in the approval of our sister-nations across the sea, who now shared the obligations as well as the privileges of Empire. " Shoulder to shoulder we stood united before the world with our children." Mr. Chamberlain re- pudiated the slander that we were bent on exterminating our enemies, and defended the banishment proclamations and the refusal to grant immunity to treason. " To do other- wise," he urged, "would be to disappoint the expectations of the nation, to lose the confidence of our kinsfolk, and to invite the contempt of those foreign countries whose affection it seems impossible for us to gain, but whose respect, at any rate, we are able to secure."
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