tude of the other Powers we have an additional testimony to the continued success of our diplomacy. In Parliament the very first week of the session witnessed an eruption of spleen in the Conservative ranks, which showed for the thousandth time that political loyalty is not proof against personal disappointment. Sir Henry Howorth has been trying for some time, without much success, to induce the world to take him at his own valuation,-an object not so very difficult of attainment if the aspirant will only avoid being a bore. This precaution the hon. member for Salford has neglected to observe; the consequence being that nobody except himself has ever dreamed of him in connection with Ministerial office, for which, in his own estimation, he is eminently qualified. Sir Henry bided his time, and watched for his opportunity; and on the 22d of January he supposed it to have arrived. But he only furnished another example of the man who goes out to gather wool and comes back shorn. He insinuated that the release of the dynamiters by the Home Secretary was the result of a corrupt bargain by which was purchased the support of the Irish members for the Land Bill of last session. Mr Balfour flayed him alive. And then the unhappy man only made matters worse by saying that he meant nothing!

"For Michael Cassio

I dare be sworn I think that he is honest."

If it is true that none smart so little as the foolish, the culprit on this occasion was a decided exception. For he felt his punishment keenly; and when, on the Monday following, the Ministerial statement completely satisfied the House, everybody saw how well he

VOL. CLXI.NO. DCCCCLXXVII

had deserved it. But though the principal offender on this occasion came out of his enterprise in such a sorry plight, the mere fact that he snarled at his master, and found others sitting near him to hound him on, indicates the existence of a spirit in the Unionist ranks which, though confined at present to a few comparatively insignificant members, requires watching, as any real or serious mistake on the part of the Government might cause it to become troublesome a possibility which

received some illustration from the effect of Mr Balfour's speech on the 1st of February in introducing the Financial Resolution preliminary to the Education Bill. In this case the mistake was a real one; but it is only on very rare occasions that the mistake of a Minister can excuse mutiny in a party.

During the whole autumn and winter it had been fully understood that the bill was to be passed in time for the voluntary schools to reap the benefit of it during the present year. Mr Balfour had many opportunities of correcting this impression, and of moderating expectations based upon the language of himself and his colleagues, if he had thought it necessary to do so. But he never uttered a word of caution, or dropped the slightest hint that the Government had not made up their minds to pass the bill by that date. When, therefore, he was heard to say that he doubted whether it would be possible to do so, something like consternation was felt in the ranks of the party, not very much alleviated by his subsequent expression of "a hope" that the bill might pass by that time, or by his assurance that Government would make an effort to accomplish that object. It seems at present

2 H

doubtful whether that effort will be successful; and if the bill is not to be carried by the end of the financial year, the raison d'être of a short and simple measure confined to voluntary schools falls to the ground. It seems idle to say that they will be no losers by the postponement of the promised relief for another twelve months. But there are more reasons than one for making the despatch of this measure a matter of the gravest urgency. The loss of money to the schools is perhaps the least among them. It is in the loss of reputation by the Government that we see the greatest cause for anxiety. Failure to pass the bill by the appointed date must necessarily be imputed either to mismanagement or indifference, for Ministers had the whole autumn in which to make their calculations, and could have called Parliament together when they pleased; nor can Mr Balfour plead a second time that he was unprepared for the kind of opposition which the bill encountered. The retirement of the Government from the ground which they were universally understood to have taken up will everywhere be interpreted as a a sign of weakness. In connection with the collapse of last session, we cannot help being afraid that it will produce a most unfavourable impression on the public mind. Its influence is to be traced at Romford and Walthamstow. And though Bridgeton is reassuring, the behaviour of two English constituencies on which the Unionists confidently relied is even still more significant. The result no doubt was due to a combination of causes. But that this was one of the most influential seems to be generally acknowledged.

The foreign policy of the Government will stand any test that

may be applied to it; but it is only every now and then that it attracts the attention of the constituencies, and their eyes are more generally fixed on the conduct of business in the House of Commons. It is by this that the great body of the public form their estimate of Ministerial capacity; and if a notion once gets abroad that the Government of the day is deficient in the practical energy required for this purpose, it takes a series of extraordinary successes to eradicate it, far less likely to follow than a series of disasters. Without ripping up old sores, we may fairly say that the Government are now on their trial, and that unless some qualities are displayed which were thought to be wanting last year, and have not yet been exhibited this year, more seats will be lost, and the prestige of the Ministry seriously impaired before the next prorogation. We hope with other Unionists that the lost ground may be regained. But it is an awkward thing when the stroke oar catches a crab at starting.

We forbear for the present to comment on the scheme for the increase of the Army explained by Lord Lansdowne to the House of Lords on February 5. It is enough to say that it is among the minor disappointments which have dimmed the prospect since the opening of the session. However, if we turn to the brighter side of the picture, we have plenty to reassure us. The clouds still darken the sky in one direction, but there is sunshine in another. England is first in the concert of Europe. There is corn in Egypt.

From the side of their foreign policy, the right wing of their position, the Government are unassailable. That is now fortified against all attack, and the battle of the session must be fought at

a

some other point. The Turkish papers now published and laid before Parliament last month exhibit the six Powers in agreement on the necessity for coercion policy which Russia for a time resisted, but ultimately recognised, though only to be used in the last resort by all the Powers combined, and in such a manner as to preserve the integrity of the Ottoman empire. Whether this policy is in the abstract the wisest that could be adopted may be thought an open question. But coercion by all the six Powers combined, and coercion by one alone, are two very different things; and it seems to be believed that when once the Sultan is convinced that the Allies are in earnest there will be no necessity to resort to force. At all events, the line taken, and firmly adhered to, by Lord Salisbury is thoroughly in accordance with British public opinion, and closes the door against all serious attacks from the Liberal or Radical party. The commanding position occupied by the Government on the greatest public question of the day may compensate us for the effect of some other mistakes, which we have no intention of minimising, and are all the more at liberty to criticise, after doing full justice to their statesmanship in foreign affairs.

We cannot indeed say that we go the whole length with Mr Chamberlain as to the comparative value of foreign and domestic questions. National institutions and national character act and react upon each other; and nothing that affects the last can ever occupy a secondary position in the eye of a true states man. And, what is more, it seems to us that our position in the world is mainly dependent on the preservation of that national character to which our domestic institutions, and therefore our do

mestic policy, have so largely contributed.

The Chan

The debate on Egypt, which ended in a majority of just three to one for the Government on February 5, brought no new arguments into the field, for there were none to bring. But both Mr Morley and Sir W. Harcourt have enriched our political experience with another choice specimen of what an Opposition too weak to be responsible can stoop to in the way of faction. Rather than lose the opportunity of a passing hit, they did not hesitate to make an effort to set England and France, and England and Russia, by the ears, and to represent to both these Powers, with whom we are acting in concert, that her Majesty's Government had insulted them! cellor of the Exchequer made a simple statement of facts which have been patent to the whole world for the last ten years, and which neither France nor Russia has ever called in question. France deliberately withdrew from the joint occupation of Egypt when she might have continued it with great advantage both to herself and others, and left England alone to do the necessary work. Is the mention of this fact an insult? Or if it is, why does Mr Morley himself reproach France with her folly in not accepting Lord Salisbury's offer in 1887, which would have terminated the English occupation? If allusion to the one fact is an insult, allusion to the other is surely a much greater one! It is all very well for dog-fighters to set two dogs at each other by pinching their tails, but it is hardly becoming in a British statesman to seek to embroil his country with a foreign Power by the adoption of a similar device.

But this sort of thing is "all the

fun of the fair" in the eyes of the Opposition. The attempt made on the 16th of last month to drag the Government into a premature and therefore most dangerous discussion on the Cretan question was another example of their recklessness. Sir William Harcourt professed the greatest anxiety to say nothing that might embarrass the Government. He only thought Lord Salisbury's words would be taken to mean that England was "actuated by a spirit of hostility to the Greek nation and Greek population wherever wherever situated.” The last thing Sir William thinks of is embarrassing the Government, he would not do it for worlds; and then he calmly delivers himself of a sentence emi nently well calculated to make Greece turn a deaf ear to all the representations of this country, and to sow discord among the Powers who are now in close

concert.

With regard to the repayment by England of the money contributed by the Caisse, and the object for which it was required the latter being in reality the main topic of the Opposition-the subject has been so fully discussed already in the columns of 'Maga' that we need not reopen it at present, even if such an inquiry came within the scope of the present paper. But neither on this nor on the Turkish question was it our intention to do more than merely indicate its position in the political view opened out before us. The less familiar point raised in the debate was the legal system now established at Cairo by means of which a decision adverse to this country was ultimately obtained. It is sufficient to observe at present that if the judgment of a court on which the Powers are fully represented can be set aside by a tribunal on which they are only partially represented,

there must be something rotten in such an arrangement which requires prompt examination. This is the common-sense view of the question; and all the well-feigned horror of Sir William Harcourt at the idea of questioning the decision of a court of law will not suffice to overshadow it. We say "well- feigned," because we can hardly suppose Sir William Harcourt to be really ignorant of the history of the mixed tribunals, which are liable to revision every five years, and were only adopted as a remedy for a state of affairs which has now entirely passed away. To claim for the judgment of a provisional institution, established for a temporary purpose and regarded only as an experiment, the sanctity due to a venerable constitutional authority to which nations have bowed for centuries, is-well, what is it? If necessity has no law, desperation has no conscience. Our occupation of Egypt, as Mr Morley himself was obliged to admit, is mainly France's own doing; and she cannot be permitted out of pure vanity to render nugatory the exertions of others in carrying out a necessary work which she refused to undertake herself.

But the most satisfactory feature of the whole debate, if not indeed of the whole session, as far as it has gone, was the manly and straightforward speech of Sir Michael Hicks-Beach. He knew what he meant, and he said it. It is time we left off playing with the Egyptian question. And though we cannot fairly charge the Government with not knowing their own minds upon the subject, since here, at least, they have shown no signs of indecision, yet the country at large will be all the better for the few strong words spoken by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, which ought to set all

doubts at rest if any still exist upon the question.

Next to this in "order of merit" comes the loyal alacrity with which the whole Conservative party answered to the call made upon them by Mr Balfour when it became necessary to closure the debate on the Financial Resolution. This should surely give him the courage which he seems to want for resolving to show the firmness that is necessary on all occasions, and so to fulfil the promise which was certainly given in the spirit if not in the letter.

We have now noticed both the clouds which have darkened and the promise which still brightens the political prospect. We must therefore pass on, so to speak, to the order of the day-the question which at the present moment is the absorbing one-the Education Question.

The bill itself consists of five clauses. It provides an additional grant of five shillings a-head for the whole number of children in voluntary schools, and abolishes what is known as the seventeenand-sixpenny limit for all schools. As the working of this last-men tioned arrangement may not be familiar to everybody, we may as well explain that the parliamentary grant of seventeen and sixpence a head was supposed to represent half the cost of each child's education; the principle adopted by the Newcastle Commission in 1858 - namely, that the parliamentary grant should equal half the cost of educationhaving been always in theory ad-, hered to. When in 1876, to meet the increased cost, the grant was raised to the amount at which it now stands, it was calculated that the cost was thirty-five shillings a-head; and it was further proIvided that whatever the school might earn by proficiency over

and above that limit, should not be recognised by the Department unless the local subscriptions should be raised to the same extent. After the seventeen-and-sixpenny limit had been reached, the parliamentary grant and the local income were to balance each other, but not before. The grant to the voluntary schools is now to be increased by 5s. a-head, which, however, will do little more than represent the increased cost of education since 1876, now amounting to 40s. a-head. But there will be nothing to prevent the school from receiving all which it can earn in excess of this amount. By the third clause of the bill the voluntary schools are exempted from rates. This provision was most ably defended in the debate by Sir Robert Finlay, who observed that while a great boon to the schools, the loss to the rates would be only a feather in the scale compared with what would be lost by exempting board schools. But the most contentious part of the bill is the proposed association or federation of schools, the object of which is to ensure the best possible distribution of the grant. The managers of each association will form a board, whose business it will be to advise the Department on this subject. Sir John Gorst explained the working of the proposed arrangement at some length. The extra grant will not be given to all voluntary schools, but only to such as stand in need of it; and the managers of each association will, it is thought, be better judges of such matters than the Education Department. We believe the idea is distasteful to some, at all events, of the Government supporters; and as for another board, we have too many boards already. But if the plan is adopted, we trust it will be an understood