Lord Salisbury then remarked on the sudden emergence of African
questions. When he left the Foreign Office in 1880, no one thought of Africa. When he returned to it in 1885, he found all the nations of Europe effervescing with new African interests. He spoke with great respect of Mr. Cecil Rhodes, a man of remarkable powers, and remarkable resolution as well, and be believed that we are at last " within measurable distance" of the final abolition of the African slave-trade, He spoke of the need for a railway from the Victoria Nyanza to the coast, and regarded such a railway as likely to prove a very powerful instrument for the abolition of the slave- trade, for such a railway would extinguish slave-caravans, and yet such a railway could not be used for the purposes of the slave-deakrs. " I do not see that any slave-dealer who pre- sented himself with a body of slaves to be carried on trucks to the coast, would be very civilly received." Lord Salisbury bore testimony lq the perfect forbearance and impartiality of Mr. Gladstone as 'leader of the Opposition in relation to all
foreign affairs, and dilated on the enormous difficulty of con- ducting foreign affairs at all without being able to rely on similar impartiality and forbearance in the conduct of Oppo- sition.
