the Balkan Peninsula and Asia Minor should not become the theatre of a general European war. Is this end more likely to be attained by the separate action of Great Britain or by a general agreement between all the Powers concerned? If Sir William Harcourt argues that Canning would have answered this question in favour of the former because he retired from the Conference of St Petersburg in 1824, he must have discovered some new logical process unknown either to Aristotle or to any other master of the art, ancient or modern.

Now that war has actually broken out, the position of affairs more nearly approaches to what it was in the reign of George the Fourth. But the maintenance of the European Concert becomes only more necessary than ever. It has failed to prevent hostilities between Greece and Turkey. But war between these two Powers is a mere preliminary skirmish to what might be expected to follow if it led directly or indirectly to the dissolution of the Turkish empire, in the absence of any loyal understanding between the great Powers. If, in the event of such a catastrophe, every Power were to have "a free hand," God help the unfortunate provinces which would be the prizes contended for; and God help this country, which, with all her great Eastern and Mediterranean interests, could scarcely avoid being dragged into the melée! To avert the battle of Armageddon is the aim of the European Concert, and we hardly know what else can avert it.

This is its final cause, and to this it must bend all its energies.

Sir W. Harcourt's big talk about "a free hand " is, with all due deference to that eminent person, ridiculous. We have a perfectly free

hand now. We joined the European Concert of our own accord because it seemed the best way of attaining the end that we desired. And we have certainly dragged the other Powers at our chariotwheels as much as, or more than, they have dragged us. One can hardly help thinking that he must have had some special end to gain, over and above the necessity of satisfying the Radicals, by the extraordinary exhibition which he made of himself both at the Eighty Club and in the House of Commons. The European Concert is associated with the policy of Lord Rosebery. Has that got anything to do with it?

With the introduction of the Irish Board of Agriculture Bill the same night what is called the Lenten session terminated, and we may now cast a glance at our legislative prospects for the next three months. The Necessitous Board Schools Bill will, we suppose, have the preference; and we can see already the lines on which the opposition to it will proceed. The object of the Voluntary Schools Bill was to remove the gross inequality of resources between these schools and board schools, whereby the former were exposed to a competition which, if not checked, must lead to their extinction. It will be the contention of the Opposition that the assistance given to board schools should be exactly the same as that given to voluntary schools,-the effect, of course, being to rob the additional grant now allotted to the latter of all its value. Give the board schools an equal grant, and we practically replace the two systems exactly where they were before the new bill was passed. We re-establish the very grievance which the bill was intended to redress, and restore with one hand the inequality we removed with

the other. The debate which took place on Sir John Gorst's resolution of the 5th of April showed clearly enough what the Opposition meant, though we hardly needed any further evidence, as they have made no secret from the first of their anxiety to push back the voluntary schools into the position from which the Government has rescued them, in order that the process of "squeezing them out" may be steadily continued. Indeed the front Opposition bench has gone so far as to use a threat, very rarely if ever heard before within the walls of St Stephen's and to threaten to repeal the bill if ever they return to office. The threat, as Mr Balfour said, will do them more harm than good. But it shows the excess of irritability from which they are just now suffering.

:

We must leave the details of the Necessitous Schools Bill to another time. It is sufficient to say broadly that the relief given will be on a sliding-scale in proportion to the rate that is required, and the amount which it represents per head. The 97th clause of the Act of 1870 and the amending clause in the Government bill are both worded with that careful attention to tautology and obscurity combined for which our Parliamentary draughtsmen have long been justly celebrated; and we should not have been able to tell Our readers the little that we have told them without the help of Sir John Gorst's speech. But by dint of severe study we hope to master the full meaning of it before recurring to the subject. Why it is that Acts of Parliament should always be as difficult to construe as a chapter in Thucydides, we have never been able to ascertain.

The Irish Board of Agriculture Bill ought to pass without much

difficulty. But we suppose the old objections will be taken to the Employers Liability Bill, better called the Workman's Compensation Bill.

This may not be carried into law without considerable friction. Next to these in importance-perhaps from one point of view we might say before these in importance · come two bills, of which one is in the hands of the Secretary for Scotland, and the other in that of a private member. Scotland certainly will have reason to complain if the Scottish Private Legislation Bill is not pushed forward this session. It is nonsense to postpone it in deference to the Irish members, who demand that an Irish Private Legislation Bill shall be passed simultaneously with the Scottish. Ireland has got quite her fair share of legislation for the present year in the Irish Board of Agriculture Bill and the Irish Poor Relief Bill, and Scotland may well insist on an equivalent in the shape of the measure for which she has waited so patiently, especially as her conduct in this respect contrasts so favourably with that of the Irish members where Irish questions are concerned. If Scotsmen see, however, that the only way of securing attention to their wants is to give the Government as much trouble as possible, they will perhaps be driven to take a leaf out of the Irishmen's book; and the Government should understand that this persistent neglect of the Northern province is scarcely a proper response to the warm support which they received from it at the last general election.

The second measure to which we have referred concerns the Church of England: we mean the Benefices Bill, of which Lord Cranborne is in charge. The friends of the Church of England, both in and out of Parliament, have been at

no pains to conceal their mortification at the little support which this necessary reform has received from her Majesty's Government. The opposition which it has encountered in the House of Commons is a piece of barefaced dishonesty. The Dissenters desire to preserve abuses in the Church, for fear the removal of them should weaken the case for disestablishment. Unless the Government takes up the question in earnest, these tactics will succeed. Of course unforeseen circumstances may make it impossible to pass the bill into law this session. But if its failure is due to the lukewarmness of the Government in its behalf, deep and lasting offence will have been given to the most powerful and influential section of the Unionist party. Already we have heard of "other political combinations." Vanity is gratified by the applause of opponents and by the thoughtless sympathy of the public with what they call "honesty and independence." But the question to be asked is this: Whether such movements have ever done any real good, and whether the political principles which they were supposed to be vindicating have ever really been served by such tactics? The malcontents, if successful, have generally had to laugh on the wrong side of their mouths. As for the dream that some other "political combination" might be more favourable to the Church, it is too absurd. Radicals would use discontented Churchmen for regaining power, and would then chastise them with scorpions.

At the present day, when the masses, with whom rests the ultimate decision, stand at a great distance from the political stage,

broad effects are necessary: unmistakable indications of intellectual and personal prowess, of perfect self-confidence, and unfailing intrepidity, such as the meanest can understand. Mr Disraeli was ever ready to take the biggest of his enemies by the throat; and if the battle sometimes ended in a draw, he was very much oftener the victor. It is the power of doing this that tells with the present constituencies. And whatever other deficiencies may be tolerated in the leader of a party, the want of this essential quality cannot. Now it is quite certain that Mr Balfour has shown himself above all criticism as a party leader, whether as to courage, statesmanship, serious eloquence, or ready wit. Twice this session at least he has beaten Yorick himself at

his own weapons, and any dissatisfaction with him on personal grounds is entirely out of the question. With regard to any other, we shall do well to reflect that it could only end either in nothing, or in the loss of all that Unionists and Conservatives have been fighting for during the last twelve years.

All Governments now are necessarily more unstable than they were forty years ago. There is no reason to suppose that public opinion is certain to swing round every six or seven years. But it is certain that in proportion as the constitution becomes more democratic, the more are Governments at the mercy of caprice or impulse: and it is surely better that some sectional grievances

should remain unredressed than that the whole Government, and the whole system of policy which it represents, should suffer any detriment.

"WERE I appointed to the command of the Channel Fleet," said a friend of mine to me some years ago-he wasn't a sailor-"I should endeavour to do my duty to the satisfaction of my superiors, in that responsible position; or were I offered the bishopric of London" -he wasn't a parson-"I should wend my way cheerfully and hopefully to Fulham or St James's Square; but I would not undertake the breaking of a retriever for the contents of the Bank of England." This gentleman's experiences had been unfortunate. I shot with him for many years, and never saw him with a wellbroken dog or a capable keeper. He spoke strongly I hope to prove to my readers too strongly;

but we must first define what a retriever is. With me it means solely and entirely the creation of a few years back say five-andtwenty or thirty-the fashionable flat-coated breed, what might be appropriately called the Shirley race, now brought to such perfection by Colonel Cornwall Legh, Mr Shuter, and others. No one can deny that cross-bred dogs, and even mongrels of low degree, are often marvellously intelligent and clever; but they are uncertain in temper and infinitely more difficult to break than those of blue blood. A strong prejudice, I am well aware, exists, or I think I may say used to exist, among sportsmen against this fashionable breed, and the reason is not far to

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seek. Until quite recently the best specimens one saw exhibited were found on inquiry never to have been broken. They were simply bred for show, and were moreover brought into the ring nearly as fat as a "Devon" or "Hereford" at Christmas - time. In the eyes of a man who keeps dogs to shoot over they were fit for nothing, not even to breed from. A sportsman likes to breed from dogs he has shot over, that he has seen at work, that he has spent many a happy day with. He and his keeper alike, if he be of the right sort, are pleased to watch a young one coming on. "He's as good as his father," or, "He'll beat the old dog yet," they say one to the other. Nothing can be more pleasant, nothing more natural. Yet notwithstanding all this, notwithstanding the care most people take to buy pups of "good working parents," it is the blood that tells; and I never would hesitate for one moment to breed from a dog or bitch, or from a dog and bitch-provided they are of high degree that had never seen a hillside or a cornfield, but had spent a miserable unprofitable existence eating "Spratt's patent" on the show-bench, ignorant alike of heather and stubble. The celebrated "Moonstone" was never broken, his sister "Thoughtful" was similarly neglected-children and grandchildren of hers I have broken myself, tractable, persevering, and dashing retrievers.

I

"Wiseacre,”

have bred from "Darenth," "Taut," and "Heedful." The first named, Mr Shirley's beautiful dog, is a splendid worker; so, I am informed, are "Darenth " and "Taut." "Heedful," on the other hand, is no use in the field, being, if all tales are true, "gun-shy"; but his pups have in no single particular shown a disinclination for work, or inaptitude to learn. On the contrary they have-notably in two cases-required little or no breaking, and have soon made a name for themselves. Another objection I have heard urged against the breed is that they are occasionally timid, or, as keepers term it, "soft," a fatal defect in the eyes of these functionaries, who-a good many of them at any rate-are fond of something to hammer. Some years ago, in conversation with one of the cloth-a good keeper, too, and as keepers go a humane one-when shooting in the south of Scotland, I explained to him the difficulty I had had with a bitch, whose working he much admired, from her extreme timidity, and told him several anecdotes in proof of what I said. He listened most becomingly, but I am under the impression he didn't believe one-half of what I told him. that as it may, he wound up the conversation by observing most emphatically, "Weel, me an' you differs on that pint. I would reyther at ony time tak it oot as pit it in," which, being ren

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