Lord Houghton expressed yesterday week the embarrass- ment which a
great many people, both Germans and Eng- lish, feel at the view taken by the Government of the nullity of the guarantee of neutrality given by us to Lux- -emburg, in case any great power refuses to fulfil its obliga- tions under the recent treaty. Lord Houghton justly observed that if we were entirely uncommitted to defend that neutrality in -conjunction with any of the great Powers who still recognize their obligations, Lord Stanley's language expressing the anxiety and sense of responsibility under which he gave that guarantee was without meaning. The North German Gazette is, very naturally, AS much perplexed and as much dissatisfied as Lord Houghton. This semi-official paper remarks, that if the guarantee is -efficient only against such powers as Lichtenstein, Greece, -or Mexico, it would scarcely have been insisted upon by Prussia. It says not unfairly, that the curious language -of the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary seems intended to reconcile the English people to the breach of that priu- ‘ciple of non-intervention which Lord Stanley had so long advo- -cated, but that it cannot be seriously intended to limit a treaty -obligation undertaken in the ordinary and obvious sense. There is real need for Lord Houghton's proposed inquiry.
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