We regret to record the indisposition of Mr. Balfour owing
to a chill which, though happily by no means grave in character, was sufficient to prevent his attendance at the House of Commons. As a result, the Vote of Censure which
was to have taken place on Tuesday had to be abandoned, and it has since been decided to postpone it till after the Whitsun- tide recess. It is possible that Mr. Balfour's address to the great Conservative Conference on Friday evening, which apparently he will be able to attend—we write on Friday morning without clear information on this point—followed as it will be by a speech from Mr. Chamberlain on Saturday evening, will clear up the issues which the Vote of Censure was intended to elucidate. Meantime we can only wait, as we have been waiting for the last two years, to hear from Mr. Balfour's own lips a clear statement as to his position. We have never ourselves doubted as to what that position in fact is, but his reticence in speech, though not in action, has no doubt obscured the public mind. By a strange inversion the "man in the street" seems to think that what a states- man says is a better test of what he is than what he does.
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