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nation of Ministers-Mr. Disraeli summoned-Refuses to take office without a dissolution of Parliament-Mr. Gladstone's ingenuous explanations-Mr. Disraeli's reply-His letter to the Queen--Position of the Tory party-The Burials Bill-Mr. Lowe's last Budget-Amendment on the Report-Close of the Session-The Bath Election-Lord Beaconsfield at Glasgow-Speech as Lord Rector-Banquet in the City Hall-The Tories not anxious to be rid of him-Rest and retirement-Mr. Gladstone dissolves Parliament on the eve of its meeting-His manifesto to Greenwich-Mr. Disraeli's address to the Electors of Bucks-The Election of 1874-Speech at AylesburyForeign policy-The state of the Elections-The Liberal Government abandons its intention of meeting Parliament-Mr. Gladstone gives up the seals of office-The Session opens on the 19th of March-Conclusion. MR. DISRAELI having thus gracefully made way for his successful opponent, Mr. Gladstone had an audience of the Queen at Windsor on the 4th of December, and on the following day arrangements were so far matured that the new Premier was able to submit a tolerably complete list of his Cabinet for acceptance. On the 9th the outgoing Ministers delivered up the seals of office, and on the same day the members of the new Administration were sworn in. It will probably be sufficient to recall the fact that Mr. Gladstone was supported by Lord Hatherley (Sir W. Page Wood) as Lord Chancellor, Mr. Lowe as Chancellor of the Exchequer, Lord Clarendon at the Foreign Office, Lord Granville at the Colonial, and Mr. Bruce (now Lord Aberdare) at the Home. Mr. Childers was First Lord of the Admiralty, and Mr. Chichester Fortescue Chief Secretary for Ireland. The appointment which excited most comment was, however, that of Mr. Bright, who, in spite of many and reiterated protestations that nothing would induce him to accept office, consented to accept the comparatively minor post of President of the Board of Trade. Higher office was understood to have been pressed upon him but steadfastly refused. Lord Russell had been asked to take part in the Administration, but refused.

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Sir George Grey also preferred to give to the new Government an independent support, and Sir Roundell Palmer, whom everybody had expected to see elevated to the Chancellorship, found himself compelled, by reason of his conscientious views on the . Irish Church question, to remain outside the Cabinet.

Parliament met for the election of the Speaker and in order to swear in the new Lord Chancellor in the middle of December, and new writs having been issued for the re-election of those members of the Government who sat in the House of Commons, an adjournment was taken to the 16th of February, 1869. On that day Parliament was opened by Commission, the chief point of interest in the Queen's Speech being of course the Irish Church question, concerning which "My Lords and Gentlemen" were informed that "the ecclesiastical arrangements of Ireland will be brought under your consideration at a very early date, and the legislation which will be necessary in order to their final adjustment will make the largest demands upon the wisdom of Parliament. I am persuaded that in the prosecution of the work you will bear a careful regard to every legitimate interest which it may involve, and that you will be governed by the constant aim to promote the welfare of religion through the principles of equal justice, to secure the action of the undivided feeling and opinion of Ireland on the side of loyalty and law, to efface the memory of former contentions, and to cherish the sympathies of an affectionate people "-an astounding sentence, which drew from even friendly critics the remark that the first act of the new Government was one of disrespect to the Sovereign, inasmuch as they had put an amazing piece of bad grammar into her mouth.

Mr. Disraeli spoke on the Address, criticising it briefly, but

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moving no amendment. Except on this occasion, he did not again address the House at any length until the 18th of March, when Mr. Gladstone's Irish Church Bill came on for second reading. He had not opposed the bringing in of the Bill, on the ground that the verdict of the country had been that the new Government should have an opportunity of dealing with the matter, and he therefore asked only for sufficient time for consideration. Three days later Mr. Gathorne Hardy gave notice that the Leader of the Opposition would, as an amendment to the Second Reading, move that the Bill be read a second time on that day six months. In opposing the Bill he dwelt chiefly upon its confiscatory character, pointing out that the relations of the State with regard to corporations are mainly those of a trustee to his ward, and that if the precedent of confiscation by such an officer were once set, there would be an end to the security of property and a collapse of the credit of the country. Further-corporate property, whether the gift of the State (which is rare) or the donation of private persons (which is usually the case), is the property, not of the State, but of the nation. If such property be confiscated, the worst results usually ensue, either on the one hand, civil disturbance or insurrection, or on the other, a chronic state of discontent and disaffection. The Government, recognizing the existence of discontent in Ireland, already proposed to cure it by disendowing one of the three Churches existing in the country, a step which promised less to allay disaffection than to create it amongst a class hitherto untouched by it. Those who had anticipated that Lord Beaconsfield would bring forward a counter-scheme of disestablishment-and there were a good many who had innocently swallowed the gobemouche stories of

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the London correspondents-were a good deal disappointed by the discovery that the criticism to which the measure was subjected was purely negative in its character. The House was unusually full and a good deal of disappointment was expressed that no greater surprise awaited it.

On the question of disendowment the Leader of the Opposition asked why this step should be taken. "Does anybody claim. the property? Nobody claims it. Does the right honourable gentleman believe that any other Church would use the property with more advantage? Certainly not, for he does not propose to give the property to any other Church. Is the tenure of the property of the Church unsatisfactory and feeble? Quite the reverse. It is the strongest tenure in the country, and it does not merely depend on the Act of Settlement, as the estates of most gentlemen do, because it has a prescription of three centuries. One is naturally and necessarily anxious to know, under these circumstances-when nobody asks for the property, when the right honourable gentleman does not pretend that any other Church would carry out the intention of the founders better than the Protestant Church, and when he does not deny that the tenure of the Protestant Church is a complete and powerful tenure-why he deprives it of its property. . . So far as I could collect from the right honourable gentleman's speech... the reason is . . . that the feelings of the Roman Catholics in Ireland are hurt by the Protestants having endowments, although the Roman Catholic Church wishes to depend on voluntary contributions, and although they are clearly of opinion that because the Protestant Church is endowed is the reason why the Protestant Church in Ireland is a comparative failure. I may say that this is the most extraordinary reason

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that has ever yet been adduced by a Minister for a great act of confiscation. It is an entirely new principle to take away the property of one corporation because there is another body— to which he does not propose to give it-jealous of that corporation having the property."

Mr. Disraeli in a passage of his speech, which is perhaps more thickly marked with notes of approving "laughter and cheers" than any other in the pages of the newspapers of the day, went on to show how, on Mr. Gladstone's principle, private property as well as public would be open to confiscation. "There are," said he, " many private properties in Irelandsome of them large and some of them rich-and they belong to Irish gentlemen, most of them living in Ireland, accomplished men, the most witty, entertaining and eloquent in the world—but there are gentlemen who have not estates that are either large or rich. Now, after the announcement of this principle of sheer forfeiture, without the application of that forfeiture to anybody which could carry out the original intention of the founders, . . . what would be the natural course which Irish gentlemen having no estates would take ?... Let me suppose that there is a deputation to the right honourable gentleman of Irish gentlemen in this unfortunate position-their argument would be this:—'We find ourselves in an anomalous position; our breeding is not inferior to that of our habitual companions; our education is the same; our pursuits are similar; we meet in the same hunting-field; we drink the same claret; we stand opposite to one another in the same dance; and our feelings are hurt because some of our companions have estates of £6000, £8000 or £10,000 a year-broad acres and extensive woods. We know the spirit of the age in which we live. We know that selfish