Professor Henry Smith has, we regret to perceive, identified himself
with the anti-Russian party in his candidature for Oxford University. Mr. Laing, of Corpus Christi College, writes to yesterday's papers to say that Professor Henry Smith has " from the beginning" " distrusted Russia's management of the Eastern Question, and that his views on that subject are the same with those expressed in Lord Salisbury's Circular." We regret this, as we entirely agree in the very high estimate of Professor Henry Smith's abilities communicated by Mr. Grant Duff to Friday's Times, though we confess that we had our doubts of his views on the leading question of the day, so soon as we read Mr. Grant Duffs remark that Professor Smith is "by no means the sort of man who thinks that he is the best Liberal, who echoes most shrilly the popular shibboleth of the hour." There are, however, shrill ways not only of echo- ing the popular shibboleth of the hour, but of denouncing it, and we hope that Professor Henry Smith, though probably more in the way of this kind of contagion, may not have caught the latter habit, any more than the former. If, however, he is really, on the greatest question of the day,—foreign policy,—one of the Laodiceans, like Mr. Grant Duff, that is, a wet-blanket for all policies alike,—a good many very sound Oxford Liberals will be inclined to ask : What, on this question, is Mr. Talbot,—a follower of the Government, or its antagonist ?
Previous page
