lie open state-aided and rate-sup- It is the fate of great principles ported schools; and the opponents that their triumph and general reof our educational system can only cognition should be followed by a impugn it by reference to the most period of exaggeration and caricapaltry details. The classes just ture. The men who fought the above the attendants of these battle of religious liberty, of freeschools, on whom the burden of dom of conscience, in bygone times, their support falls heaviest, and who would repudiate for their successors have themselves the least educa- men who only appeal to those burntional facilities, must regard with ing principles in reference to the some contempt this religious con- most trivial issues in a manner which troversy, which in terms concerns impedes progress, and who would itself with the children, in reality readily foster the most petty differexpresses the factitious scruples of ences into occasions of serious social rival sects. Their class is not so strife. The Liberals of to-day have profitable a client, nor so influential a ceased to occupy the ground which supporter, of public-spirited gentle- was covered by their fathers; and men thirsting for distinction. It in many cases, with their crotchets, may be presumed that their finer their test questions, and their imfeelings in favour of religious equa- practicable temper, threaten to belity are often overwhelmed by the come the most obstinate and even practical difficulties of finding suit- fanatical impediments in the way of able education at all within their social, and especially of educational, pecuniary means. progress. The Education Bill is undoubtedly the most important measure of the Session, not merely as regards its immediate practical consequences upon the efficiency of the schools, but also with reference to the possible political results. The breach in the Liberal party seems to have been widened; the famous 25th clause which rent it asunder is at last repealed, but its principle has been affirmed, and its operations extended and made compulsory; the Catholic vote of Ireland has, it is said, been temporarily attracted to the Government; and the position of the Conservative party has been more than ever established, as the champion of the settlement of 1870 against the rash assaults of an angry and disappointed clique, who mistake paltry susceptibilities for devotion to great principles, and obstruct the execution of a great policy by exaggerating into important questions of conscience difficulties which, tried by any test of numbers or of money, of infinitesimal importance. are Mr Cross's Enclosure Bill was brought in in consequence of an agitation which had arisen to defend the rights of the general population in waste lands. The lords of the manor and the commoners were considered to exhaust between them all the legal interests in the lands; but public policy required the preservation of open spaces for the recreation of the poorer classes. The object of the new Bill was to prevent the enclosure of commons, to continue their uses by the common people, and to effect their improvement. The Act is generally recognised as a satisfactory compromise between the owners of the lands and those who oppose their enclosure. As a general rule, no enclosure will be allowed within a certain distance of large towns; and when enclosures are effected, facilities are given for the protection of the rights of poor commoners and of the inhabitants of the neighbouring towns. Another bill brought in by Mr Cross, who has began to babble of little joys. Surely before the close of such a day something wonderful must happen. The fitful air was full of vague promises; each scent, as it grew fainter with the growth of day, hinted a memory too sweet for a regret. Thomas stepped out gay as a troubadour. The hours seemed endless before him, each moment a new joy, and surely somewhere a great surprise to crown the day. He thought with pity of Orlando, for whom no wonderful thing was reserved. He was full of whimsical thoughts, laughing and blushing now and then at his own absurdity. He pulled off his hat to the honeysuckle in the loose-growing hedge, and stepped aside from the path of a beetle magnificent in green: he stopped to whisper to the sweet-brier rose, and to hear the sage counsel of a pragmatical finch. He lingered by the cottage porch, if haply some little damsel might step out to fasten the loose spray of roses. He watched a light cart come jogging towards him, and wondered who was in it; till lazy Sally was jolted by in the sunlight, and he began to wonder if she had a lover. While his thoughts were yet busy with Sally, and he was humming some words of a girl, who was no lady nor beautiful, and who knew she ought not to walk with a gentleman; while he was musing on dairies and daisies and cool pastures and threelegged stools, and fancying Corydon with ribbons at his knees, and Bob Hulker in corduroy; and when the day was still young, he heard the quick feet of ponies behind him, and before he had time to imagine a lovely driver, she had passed. Only a vision of soft fair hair, a face half curious, half shy, but very sweet in shadow; and yet the young man thought that something remarkable had happened. He stood still and stared with the murmured song hushed on his lips. Away went the ponies, sleek, round, and sure of foot, happy in the thought of corn and in the light hand of their lady. Thomas pushed through a gap in the hedge, and ran up the sloping field, whence the hay had just been carted. From the high ground he looked far down the road, till the little carriage was but a speck in the distance. Then he sighed and solemnly shook his head, and then he looked across the country with a new sense of its loveliness. Fields of ripening corn stretched away from his feet to the bank of the delaying river. The wheat was scarcely stirred, and the hazy air was murmurous with the hum of insects. Beyond the river lay meadows where cows were lazily feeding-meadows which far away rose slowly and softly into grassy hills. The sky was tender as the memory of an old love-story-everywhere was rest; and the impressionable Thomas staring upward with wide eyes, gave himself up to dreams, and, dreaming, slept. When Thomas woke the sun was high, and the charm of morning had passed away. He stretched himself, rubbed his eyes, and wrinkled his eyebrows plaintively. Then he stared down the road, and was absurdly disappointed because he could not see the pony-carriage. There was nothing but hot and dusty miles laid out before him, plain and monotonous as the path of everyday duty. He gave a great sigh, and braced himself for the work. As he plodded on, he began to think himself a very unfortunate young man. Nothing ever came up to his expectations. How different the day would have been, if those pampered ponies had taken fright, and he had flung himself at their heads! So his imagination busied itself with that which might have been. He fancied Beauty in distress and Hero In signal for a splendid speech by Mr P. J. Smyth in favour of Repeal. The failure of that attempt was renewed when they sought to release the Fenians, to assimilate the Irish to the English borough franchise, and to give proprietary rights to tenants. They, however, carried the second reading of a bill to close Irish public-houses on a Sunday, but this success was wrested from them by their compatriots, who in a later stage ruthlessly talked it out. creased majorities got rid of the Women's Franchise Bill and the Permissive Bill-the discussion of the former being redeemed from its usual dead waste of time by a powerful speech from Mr Bright, who denied that he had ever been a convert to its principles as alleged by Mr Mill in his Autobiography, but had voted in deference to his friend and to secure discussion. A majority of 100 threw out Mr Trevelyan's resolution in favour of reducing the county franchise; and probably in our generation Parliamentary reform will not again become a great national question. The majority against Mr Osborne Morgan's resolution on the Burials question was reduced to thirty-one; and as Lord Granville's similar resolutions were favourably received by the Archbishop and Lord Selborne, we hope that an unpleasant controversy which, in deference to the nonconformists, Liberals have made a party one, will soon be satisfactorily compromised. It concerns only one-fifth of the population, and ought to be treated as a sanitary rather than a sectarian question. The most sensational proposal during the Session was the Bill which enabled her Majesty to assume the title of Empress of India. In any other country such an addition to the title of the sovereign under such circumstances would have been effected as a matter of course. And in England, under our Parliamentary system, a disciplined Opposition, with an experienced leader, would either have gracefully assented to the proposal, or stated at the outset its objections, with a fitting regard to the respect and loyalty due to the Crown. Neither course recommended itself to the Liberal party, whose incomprehensible manoeuvres were the amazement of all observers. Though the dignity of the sovereign and the relations of their own party to the throne were concerned, the Opposition received the announcement in the Royal Speech in silence, passed the second reading of the Bill in a grudging and querulous manner, and finally, in the mistaken belief that the outside clamour invited by their own proceedings represented an intelligent and decided hostility to the measure, proposed to reject the new title, and were defeated by a majority of 105. It was soon apparent that the excitemeut which prevailed was factitious, and that the tumult which arose in the Liberal ranks was due to the extraordinary disorganisation and, in this instance, defective leadership of the party. Mr Lowe shared the excitement of his colleagues, and with characteristic indiscretion deliberately adopted the position into which the party had allowed itself to drift, but over which a more competent leader would have drawn a decent veil. In the excitement of a reckless contest, he equally with his colleagues had forgotten the very existence of their sovereign; but it was reserved for an incomparable performance at Retford so to assault the Ministry as to present the whole world with the spectacle of a privy councillor arraigning his sovereign before her subjects on a false charge. Nothing remained after this but apology and sub mission; and the whole proceedings of the Opposition are not unfairly represented by this leading incident in their ill-concerted and ill-disciplined attack. The Queen became, with the approval of all, except the very few who lashed themselves into a state of unreasoning party excitement, Empress of India. The title is appropriate, fitly expresses the splendour of her Eastern dominions, and (not to wound Liberal susceptibilities) is absolutely innocuous as regards the constitutional position of the throne or its relations to Indian chiefs. The full importance of the measure will doubtless be appreciated at the beginning of next year. No one can be so dead to the influence of imperial splendour in preserving imperial power, as not to recognise the historical and political importance of the solemn proclamation of English rule in India at the seat of the Mogul Empire, on the very spot where the Indian Mutiny was suppressed and the supremacy of Great Britain finally vindicated. The effect upon the political position of the legislative proposals of last session, seems to be that while the Conservative party has not lost a solitary vote, it was greatly strengthened in its position in Parliament and the country by the extraordinary proceedings adopted by their opponents in reference to the Titles Bill and the Education Bill. The Home Rule party is still an independent faction of the Opposition, and it will become imperatively necessary at future elections to weigh well the consequences of so far diminishing the strength of the Conservatives as to render Home Rulers the masters of the situation. There is, owing to the course adopted by the Radicals in reference to the amendments to Lord Sandon's Bill, and the partial ratification which they received from Lord Hartington, a project of establishing a third fraction of opposition to be called the Extreme Left. Whether such a party is formally constituted or not, we know that it practically existsscientific Liberals, as they call themselves, whose marvellous expositions their own friends denounce with anger and astonishment. Failing the Conservative party, the alternative prospect is in an Opposition thus irreconcilably disunited, led by men whose official authority and legislative experience are wholly inadequate to control the indiscipline and disunion which the want of a common aim and policy has created in their ranks. It is, however, in foreign and colonial affairs that the chief topics of interest are to be found. The most formidable attack which the Opposition has yet succeeded in making was in reference to the Slave Trade Circulars. On that subject they reduced the Ministerial majority to 45. Agitation on the subject spent its force in the recess. The first circular disappeared; a second was drawn up on the high authority of the Lord Chancellor ; and the announcement in the Queen's speech of a Royal Commission to consider the subject blunted the attack. Further than that, it appeared that those purely departmental instructions in terms repeated the directions which had previously been given by Liberal Governments, and notably by Lord Clarendon, for the surrender of slaves. The dispute, upon which the orators of public meetings could express themselves with supercilious confidence, turned upon a difficult question of international law and rights, and tacitly slipped out of party controversy. A third circular was eventually issued at the close of the session after the report of the Royal Commission: the task of drawing up an elaborate code of rules is abandoned; British officers abroad must use their best discre- as the Company itself possesses. tion in dealing with slaveholding States, remembering the distinct policy of Great Britain on the subject of slavery. They must respect the general understanding on which foreign ships are admitted into national harbours; and the authors of circulars will remember that there is safety in vague instructions, while a definite rule on this thorny question bristles with controversy and stirs indescribable passion. The purchase of the Suez Canal shares, which at the opening of the Session was the prominent topic of interest, has never been seriously questioned in Parliament, and retains the full approval of the public. Criticism has never risen above the smaller details of the transaction, except when it challenged inquiry into the precise mode in which proprietorship strengthens influence, or denounced the gambling transactions on the Stock Exchanges in Europe which resulted from the purchase. Upon the former the English nation at once perceived that, without scrutinising too closely the details of the Canal administration under its present constitution, the acquisition of the shares materially strengthened the position of the Government in determining the future position of the Canal, in preventing French monopoly, and in deciding as to the terms of its redemption for international purposes. No politician of sense could possibly be diverted from the obvious importance of acquiring proprietary rights in a maritime highway of infinite importance to the British empire to the analysis of our exact position under the present constitution of the Company, or to a minute calculation of the pecuniary details. It is a satisfaction, in view of possible events and of future international relations in regard to this Canal, that nearly half of it now belongs to the British empire, in as full proprietary right Mr Gladstone's scornful remark, that those shares had better be divided amongst her Majesty's Ministers in acknowledgment of their services in this matter, met with no approving response. And as regards the deplorable Stock Exchange speculations, we cannot, as Mr Disraeli insisted, allow considerations of that kind to influence the conduct and policy of Government in matters of high importance. The purchase is regarded by the country, in itself and in the manner in which it was effected, as a great political and patriotic act, and it largely increased the popularity and influence of the Government. The moment that public attention is diverted from domestic legislation, the width and variety of the subjects which challenge consideration are limited only by the extent of the habitable globe. The questions raised by Slave Circulars apply to ports in Africa, in the Persian Gulf, in South America, in the Eastern and Western hemispheres. The purchase of the Canal shares raised the question of the protectorate of Egypt, our future relations to the continent of Africa, the preservation of the route to India, the control and management of a highway in which all civilised nations are now largely interested. India itself has absorbed more of political observation during last session than at any time since the Mutiny. The visit of the Prince of Wales, under all the cir cumstances the most wonderful royal progress that the world has ever witnessed; the new title of the Queen; the appointment of a new Viceroy in the person of Lord Lytton, distinguished for his diplomatic career and as a worthy inheritor of his father's fame; the strained relations between the Indian executive and the home Government; and lastly, the panic in the silver market, have all |