NEWS OF THE WEEK.
THE feeling in England against the Sultan threatens to develop into a formidable agitation. A series of public meetings are to be held, ostensibly to strengthen Lord Salisbury's hands, really to coerce him into action more vigorous than he at present deems it wise to adopt. The Daily Chronicle published on Saturday last a " message " from Mr. Asquith, in which he declared his opinion that Great Britain 'should hold " no farther terms with a Government which has become a mere instrument for executing the purposes of a will either criminal or insane." On Monday the Times contained a letter from Lord Rosebery, in which he asserts that feeling in this country is "exasperated by the appearance and perhaps the reality of impotence." He does not doubt that her Majesty's Government shares that feeling, though he does doubt whether its course has been "either skilful or spirited," but holds that the responsibility rests not so much with us as with the Great Powers of Europe, with none of whom the Government is in particularly cordial relations. Let there be a demonstration, therefore, but not a party demonstration. He hopes little from public meetings, but still let them be held,—" national, spontaneous, and unsectional, indisputably the unprompted voice of the nation." Mr. Gladstone writes nearly every day in the same sense, always styling the Sultan "the Assassin," and it is believed will make a great effort to speak at a grand meeting to be held in Liverpool. The papers are choked with letters and addresses breathing flame against the Sultan, and there seems no doubt that as soon as the Czar has left Balmoral, or even while he is there, the horror of the whole country will be audibly expressed.
