The correspondents in the various European capitals, in- cluding Constantinople,
have been greatly exercised this week about Sir H: D. Wolff's Mission. Some of them have assumed that he is to ask Turkey for a defensive and offensive alliance against Russia, some of them that he is to ask for an English Protectorate over Egypt. And he has been solemnly warned by various correspondents that Turkey will not grant either request, at all events while a " care-taker " Cabinet remains in occu- pation here, a Cabinet which has no substantial power to act in the name of England. If that is the Sultan's view, he is certainly quite right. It would be hardly honourable in Lord Salisbury to offer to Turkey engagements which he is very little likely to have the means of keeping; and we do not believe that he has offered them. Assuredly, if a Liberal Government comes in in November, it could hardly be more seriously ham- pered than it would be by being informed that an offensive and defensive alliance with Turkey against Russia had been con- cluded by the temporary Government of Lord Salisbury.
