provinces.

Scheme after scheme is started only to fall through. With regard to the latest, it was that of Lord Derby himself, which he described as "introducing local self-government, and diminishing the central authority of the Turkish Government." If the sole object which the neighbouring Powers had in view were to improve the condition of the Sultan's subjects, this scheme might succeed. "I believe it can be done," said Lord Derby, "and I am sure it ought to be tried; but there are six Governments who must be united, or nothing can be done." Russia accepted the scheme. Turkey did not refuse it. Europe generally adopted it. And yet it bids fair to come to nothing. Peace seems impossible in the tumult of warlike passions. And at this critical moment the influence of England is far less than it was. Our dissent from the Berlin Memorandum appeared to dissolve the Triple Alliance, and to rally the Powers of Europe round the standard of peace and non-intervention which England was foremost to unfurl. But since that time the attitude of public opinion in this country has been wavering and uncertain. It has weakened its control over a a fanatical Government already revolving desperate expedients. Its direct invitation and encouragement to Russia to intervene, have materially increased the enthusiasm and warlike ardour of the very peoples whom diplomacy was striving to win over to pacific resolutions. No wonder that we hear of the Triple Alliance again resuming its influence and its projects. The champion of European concert, European concert, peace, non-intervention, the faith of treaties, and the integrity of Turkish territory, has shown that its statesmanship cannot be depended upon, that it is liable to

fits of ungovernable passion, and that its party leaders are ready to avail themselves of any opportu nity of paralysing the action of Ministers. We have seen in the course of this diplomacy-Mr Lowe himself has borne witness to it— the power which England can exercise when she takes a determined attitude. We saw in 1853 the havoc and confusion which result when she displays an uncertain attitude and a wavering policy; and we are doomed, we fear, to witness a repetition of the same bitter experience in 1876. In the one case we owed it to the divided counsels of a Ministry which could determine neither for peace nor war. In the other we owe it to the factious demonstration which "forced the hand of diplomacy," and for a time threw the whole weight of English public opinion, as it is understood abroad, into the scale in favour of a policy of violence.

According to present appearances, it is too late to discuss any plans of pacification, or the suggestions of Lord Stratford de Redcliffe, Mr Forster, and others who are entitled to speak with authority upon the subject. The hour may be approaching, though we still hope it may be averted, for that scramble, with its illimitable dangers, which all have foreseen, and which the Ministry has struggled to prevent. The next step will be to discuss and decide what course England is bound to pursue. Certainly, if the Powers more immediately concerned fall away from her leadership and alliance, if France is inactive, and Austria and Germany side with Russia, they must take the consequences. Our interests are less direct and immediate, and we may trust the Ministry to see that they are respected. Under these circum

stances we stand free of all engagements to Europe; the Turks themselves have assuredly no claim to our protection. Sooner or later, however, if the war assume the character and dimensions we all anticipate, England may be drawn into it; and at any rate a watchful and armed neutrality is imposed upon us by prudence, or even necessity. And if public men have learnt more self-control and patriotism from the lessons of the recent agitation, even that explosion of fanaticism may have its public uses. Liberals must learn that it is an abuse of the privileges of the Opposition to thwart the policy of the Foreign Minister; to attempt, without official relation to the facts, to dictate the course to be taken; to paralyse the hand of the Administration by misrepresenting its aims, and fanning into a flame all the smouldering embers of strife which it is successfully seeking to extinguish. The course recently pursued is without precedent; we trust that it will never be repeated. In times of critical diplomacy, as well as in times of war, representative institutions are, as the Prince Consort observed during the Crimean expedition, on their trial. He is no friend to free institutions who strives to render them incompatible with the exercise of influence abroad, or uses them so as to paralyse the action of his country. Even if we are opposed to the policy of the Minister, still he is for the time being intrusted with the authority of the State; and only ill can come of impairing that authority in the moment of action, or of endeavouring to force him, contrary to his judgment and the results of his official and confidential information, to pursue a course which he knows to be full of peril and disaster. No

VOL. CXX.-NO. DCCXXXIII.

British Minister is likely to yield to dictation; he would be unfit for his post if he were. It follows that dictation of the grossly extravagant kind attempted by Mr. Gladstone, is not a legitimate weapon of Opposition. The duty of Opposition is to criticise, to hold a Minister responsible in Parliament, but not to dictate to him the course which he should pursue, nor to endeavour to exercise over him an authority which the constitution denies to the sovereign, and never dreamt of confiding to a dismissed servant of the Crown, who has lost his office by the vote of the people. To attempt to do so not merely weakens the Administration, but impairs the usefulness of Opposition, by involving them in responsibility of a class from which they ought to be free. Mr Disraeli, when in Opposition, was so alive to the importance of supporting Government in its foreign administration, that he allowed one of his principal supporters to give official aid in the Alabama negotiations, and thereby paralysed Opposition. That was an error of exactly the opposite kind; it strengthened the Ministry at the expense of the critical authority of the House of Commons. was not merely in that affair, but in the prolonged and serious struggle in America, out of which the Alabama negotiation arose, that Mr Disraeli's influence was uniformly exercised in support of the Government. Mr Gladstone, with his usual headlong rashness, although a Minister of the Crown, was raising public excitement upon that which we now know was the wrong side, and was only saved from its consequences by the united efforts of Sir George Lewis and Mr Disraeli. In 1872, when he was in the agonies of the Alabama arbitra

2 U

It

tion, he did tardy justice to the patriotism of his rival. In the FrancoGerman war, it would have been easy to have aroused public animosity against Mr Gladstone,-first for the craven tone adopted at the outset, then during the excitement consequent on German successes, then during the Russian repudiation of the Black Sea clause of the Treaty of Paris, and Bismark's scornful treatment of his envoy, and the "order of ideas which had brought him to Versailles." But the conduct of foreign affairs is intrusted to the Ministry; if they cannot conduct them successfully, no one else We had far better support even an incompetent Minister than resort to a method, the wildest ever suggested in politics, of placing one man in office, and allowing another without office, and without responsibility, to dictate to him his policy. Mr Gladstone declares that only an infinitesimal share of responsibility now devolves upon him from any of his acts or words; but that at the same time the responsibility of silence is too great to be borne. This, doubtless, is an awkward position ; but what reasonable man

can.

who has ever reflected on the duties of Opposition would accept either half of this extraordinary statement? The double delusion no doubt explains his extraordinary conduct, and we have no doubt that its disastrous results upon his party will be the best guarantee against its repetition. It must be urged upon the promoters of the recent agitation, their worshippers and their admirers, that we are probably entering on a most serious and critical period; and that it is essential, if England is to retain its place among nations, that the Opposition as well as the Ministry should have clear ideas of its responsibilities, not only to its party, but to its sovereign and its country: and then, if ever the time should come when either party might reasonably call upon the country to forego its own vital and permanent interests in deference to an exalted standard of duty, the sublime precept will be strengthened if experience shows that those interests have not been previously forgotten in an eager and unscrupu lous scramble for mere party advantage.

GOING home in the carriage Zoe was silent, but Severne talked nineteen to the dozen. Had his object been to hinder his companion's mind from dwelling too long on one thing, he could not have rattled the dice of small talk more industriously. His words would fill pages; his topics were that Miss Gale was an extraordinary woman, but too masculine for his taste, and had made her own troubles setting up doctress, when her true line was governess-for boys. He was also glib and satirical upon that favourite butt, a friend.

"Who but a soi-disant womanhater would pick up a strange virago, and send his sister to her with twenty pounds? I'll tell you what it is, Miss Vizard-

Here Miss Vizard, who had sat dead silent under a flow of words, which is merely indicated above, laid her hand on his arm to stop the flux for a moment, and said quietly-" Do you know her?-tell me."

VOL. CXX.-NO. DCCXXXIV.

"Know her!-how should I?” "I thought you might have met her-abroad."

"Well, it is possible, of course, but very unlikely. If I did, 1 never spoke to her, or I should have remembered her. Don't you think so?"

"She seemed very positive; and I think she is an accurate person. She seemed quite surprised and mortified when you said 'No.'"

"Well, you know, of course it is a mortifying thing when a lady claims a gentleman's acquaintance, and the gentleman doesn't admit it. But what could I do? couldn't tell a lie about it-could I?"

"Of course not."

I

me. Yes, I listened, and got such a lesson as only a noble, gentle lady could give. I shall never forget your womanly art, and the way you contrived to make the benefaction sound nothing. We are all of us at low water in turns, and for a time, especially me, Zoe Vizard; so here's a trifling loan.' A loan! -you'll never see a shilling of it again! No matter. What do angels want of money?"

"Oh! not in love."

"I beg your pardon. Now this is between you and me he was in love with her-madly in love. He was only saved by our coming away. If those two had met, and made acquaintance, he would have been at her mercy. I don't say any harm would have come of it; but I do say that would have depended on the woman, and not on the man." Zoe looked very serious, and said

"Then I wish there was more light to see it—yes, an angel. Do you think I can't see you have done all this for a lady you do not really approve Fancy! a she-doctor!"

"My dear friend," said Zoe, with a little juvenile pomposity, "one ought not to judge one's intellectual superiors hastily, and this lady is ours;" then gliding back to herself "and it is my nature to approve what those I love approve; when it is not downright wrong, you know." "Oh, of course, it is not wrong; but is it wise?"

Zoe did not answer the question puzzled her.

"Come," said he, "I'll be frank, and speak out in time. I don't think you know your brother Harrington. He is very inflammable."

"Inflammable !-what! Harrington? Well, yes-for I've seen smoke issue from his mouth-ha, ha!"

"Ha, ha! I'll pass that off for mine, some day when you are not by. But, seriously, your brother is the very man to make a fool of himself with a certain kind of woman. He despises the whole sex-in theory; and he is very hard upon ordinary women, and does not appreciate their good qualities. But, when he meets a remarkable woman, he catches fire like tow. He fell in love with Mademoiselle Klosking."

He

"And now," said he, after a judicious pause, "here is another remarkable woman; the last in the world I should fancy-or Vizard either, perhaps, if he met her in society. But the whole thing occurs in the way to catch him. finds a lady fainting with hunger. He feeds her; and that softens his heart to her. Then she tells him the old story-victim of the world's injustice-and he is deeply interested in her. She can see that; she is as keen as a razor. If those two meet a few more times, he will be at her mercy and then won't she throw physic to the dogs, and jump at a husband six feet high, and twelve thousand acres? I don't study women with a microscope, as our woman-hater does; but I notice a few things about them; and one is that their eccentricities all give way at the first offer of marriage. I believe they are only adopted in desperation, to get married. What beautiful woman is ever eccentric ? catch her; she can get a husband without. That doctress will prescribe Harrington a wedding-ring; and, if he swallows it, it will be her last prescription; she will send out for the family doctor after that, like other wives."

"You alarm me," said Zoe. "Pray do not make me unjust. This is a lady with a fine mind; and not a designing woman."