There is little new to chronicle in regard to the
Venezuelan question, except that the American papers are disputing as to the truth of the report, given by the New York World, that
Lord Salisbury peremptorily stopped Mr. Bayard when the latter endeavoured to read to him a despatch in which the Government of the United States assumed the right to inter- vene in the quarrel. That story has been denied on this side in an evidently inspired leader in the Times, and by Mr. Bayard himself in the American Press. The World, however, sticks to its guns, and has published a communication signed by its correspondent in London, Mr. Ballard-Smith, who declares that his statement was made on the authority of an official
who was, and is, certainly in a position to speak with accu- racy and knowledge of Lord Salisbury's version of the com- munication in question with Mr. Bayard." No doubt Mr. Ballard-Smith was perfectly sincere in what he wrote, but for all that we believe him to have been misinformed. There are plenty of "officials "—the term is an elastic one, and might even include a messenger or doorkeeper—who are willing to assert that they are in Lord Salisbury's confidence, and know the contents of every Cabinet despatch-box, and who yet are as ignorant as the journalists they are so eager to "inform." Besides, on the face of it, the story is much too dramatic. Statesmen and men of the world like Mr. Bayard and Lord Salisbury, do not do business in so scenic a fashion.
