was not on the table, must be adjourned, the Liberal revolts returned to their allegiance, and the Government was saved by a large majority; but the Zanzibar contract was doomed, and the damaging effect of the discussion remained.

A Select Committee was appointed to consider the subject, and in accordance with their report a new contract was made and ratified with the same Company, but on terms more favourable to the public. A still graver irregularity in the conduct of the Treasury and several other Departments was exposed in the Report of the Committee on Public Accounts. Mr. Scudamore, Assistant-Secretary of the Post Office, had applied to the extension of the telegraphic system a sum of nearly 1,000,000l., arising partly from Post Office receipts and partly from Savings' Bank deposits. The whole amount belonging to revenue ought to have been from day to day paid over to the Consolidated Fund; and the sums belonging to the Savings' Banks ought at once to have been transferred to the National Debt Commissioners. It appeared that the Assistant Secretary of the Post Office had never communicated to his responsible chief, the Postmaster-General, the illegal application of the money, and that he had been improperly allowed to correspond directly with the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Mr. Lowe's attention had been repeatedly drawn to the subject by Mr. Scudamore himself, although the magnitude of the misappropriation was never suspected. Mr. Monsell made no attempt to assert his authority; and the National Debt Commissioners neglected to inquire into the cause of the smallness of their receipts from the Post Office. After the publication of the Report of the Committee on Public Accounts, Mr. Cross, an able member of the Opposition, proposed a vote of censure on the Treasury and the Post Office in terms which were not too strong for the occasion. The Government was, according to precedent, justified in diverting the attack by an amendment, which Sir John Lubbock was induced to propose, almost identical, except in its source, with Mr. Cross's resolution. One of the principal objections which the selected apologist of the Government urged against the motion was that it was in some respects too mildly expressed. Sir John Lubbock censured the abuses which had occurred even more severely than Mr. Cross; nor, indeed, was there any difference of opinion on the merits of the case. Mr. Monsell's meekness almost disarmed the irritation of the House; but Mr. Lowe's defence was not favourably received. Eventually the House determined by a majority of two to one, not that the various Departments involved were blameless, but that the deserved vote of censure should be expressed in the language selected by the mouth-piece of the inculpated Ministers. As Mr. Osborne epigrammatically remarked, the contest was between a decaying Government and a worn-out Opposition. Just before the close of the session, the Government, or rather the Premier, with whose name that Government must always be emphatically identified, found an eloquent defender in the Lord Chancellor, who, at the

annual Mansion House dinner, returned thanks for the Ministry in the absence of his chief, Mr. Gladstone.

"No one," he said, "can pursue so fearlessly and so uncompromisingly the course which he deems to be right without provoking much free-spoken opposition, though I do not think real enmity; but of this I am sure, that when posterity comes to pass judgment upon the transactions of this Government and of its head, it will acknowledge that the destinies of this country were never presided over by a man either of greater intellectual power, of greater private virtue, or of a more disinterested public spirit." The Lord Chancellor continued: "I shall not detain you, my lords and gentlemen, by referring to those achievements of the past years of this administration during which I had not the honour to be enrolled among its members. Perhaps on that account I might be entitled to speak somewhat more freely than those who had that honour. All I would say is this, that, whatever opinions may be entertained upon one measure or another measure, at least it will be hereafter acknowledged that during the tenure of office by this Government great questions have been grappled with in a masterly manner, and many difficult subjects have been so treated as to be removed for ever from the range of public controversy. As to the present session, which happily approaches its end, it has had its ups and downs, and perhaps I may be relying with more confidence and satisfaction than is right upon measures in relation to which I have myself been called upon to bear a considerable part; but I venture to think that it will not hereafter be thought a small achievement to have united together all the higher Courts of Justice of this kingdom, to have produced the power of economizing and distributing, without regard to artificial distinctions, the whole judicial power of the country, and to have put an end to that strange dualism between law and equity which has been productive of interminable vexation and expense to those suitors who were bandied about from one court of the country to another. I believe, my lords and gentlemen, that in this great work-I do not say it is the only work, but I am sure it is a very great work-of the present session, you have laid the foundation of other and further improvements, of further beneficial changes in those parts of our law which still require to be changed; and on some of these subjects I venture to think some beginning, at all events, which will hereafter bear fruit, has been also made during the present session. I refer particularly to the laws relating to the transfer of land. Passing from our domestic administration, I cannot but think the country will be prepared to acknowledge that some considerable events have happened during the present year, and under the present Government, which will be looked upon with satisfaction and approved by the nation. We have made a great step towards the suppression of the East African slave-trade. (Cheers.) We interfered in the first instance in a manner which showed we had no disposition or inclination to press by the mere force of our power upon indepen

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dent governments, however insignificant; but when those independent governments manifested a disposition to trifle with the obligations of treaties and with the interests of humanity and mankind, then we showed that this country was not to be trifled with (Cheers), and we obtained those concessions immediately on showing the determination we felt (Cheers), and which, I trust, will enable us to take every necessary measure to put an end to that curse of mankind. (Cheers.) Another event of no slight importance has occurred during the present year, crowning the many advances which have been made in China towards more perfect relations between Great Britain and that country-relations in which the commercial interests of this city are most deeply concerned. We have, for the first time, been admitted upon terms of equality to an audience with the ruler of that great empire, and there is an end for ever to those distinctions which have led to more wars than one, of superiority on the part of that Oriental Government over all the rest of mankind. There is another event, my Lord Mayor, to which I may refer, in which you have taken a prominent part. We have witnessed during the present year the visit of a great Oriental Sovereign to this country, and I cannot but think that the nation has been satisfied with the manner in which it was represented on that occasion in all the arrangements made by the Government. That potentate I believe left this country deeply impressed with its power, deeply impressed with its wealth, deeply impressed with its civilization; but most of all impressed with the effects of liberty and Constitutional Government on the people among whom he moved. Here he saw in our streets the whole population of London, day after day, thronging to receive and greet him, without the least trace or sign of disorder, without the least necessity for the presence of the military or any other kind of repression-intelligence and freedom producing their best fruits in popular self-respect and popular self-control. (Cheers.) He has left our shores, I believe, with a deep conviction-yet I heartily think not more deep than true-of the real solidity and greatness of the power of England (Cheers); and I am proud, my Lord Mayor and citizens of London, to acknowledge in this assembly, that to yourself and the citizens of London no inconsiderable share of that impression is justly due." (Cheers.)

The latter portion of this speech referred to the visit of the Shah of Persia, which was made the occasion for an amount of popular excitement never exceeded, even in a country prone to such excitements, and a series of public fêtes of singular splendour and completeness. The Eastern Sovereign, whose visit was mainly connected with a concession which he had negotiated with the famous capitalist, Baron Reuter, by which the latter was expected to become practically the master of the resources of Persia for the purpose of making railways, collecting customs, and carrying out various improvements, was for the time the popular idol. The details of his doings are described in another portion of this volume.

Immediately after the close of the session, the public were startled by the intelligence of ministerial changes of a sweeping and unusual character, amounting to an entire reconstruction of the cabinet. Disagreements between the ministers were rife when the House dissolved. Open differences of opinion existed between Mr. Lowe and Mr. Ayrton, and Mr. Baxter resigned the Secretaryship of the Treasury in consequence of difficulties with the Chancellor of the Exchequer. These internal quarrels demanded readjustment, and the country, as evidenced by repeated Conservative victories at elections, also demanded either that or something else. The first step was to remove Mr. Lowe from the Treasury, and install him at the Home Office; and Mr. Gladstone attached the duties of the office to himself, and became Premier and Chancellor of the Exchequer in one. He had precedents for the course, but they are of ancient date. Sir Robert Walpole, Lord North, Mr. Pitt, and (for a few months) Mr. Canning and Sir Robert Peel, all had experience of the double duty. Urgent private affairs induced Lord Ripon and Mr. Childers to follow Mr. Baxter into retirement, Mr. Childers leaving a vacant place for Mr. Bright, who re-entered the Cabinet, and took the Duchy of Lancaster. Mr. Bruce received a peerage-and became Lord Ripon's successor as President of the Council. To lighten the Premier's new duties, Mr. Dodson took the post of Financial Secretary to the Treasury, Mr. Arthur Peel the Parliamentary Secretaryship; and Lord F. Cavendish joined the Board to aid Mr. Dodson, with precedence over the junior Lords. In addition to these changes it was subsequently decided that Mr. Ayrton should quit the office of First Commissioner of Works, in which capacity, rightly or wrongly, he had played so large a part in attaching to the Government its present unpopularity, and take up the Judge-Advocate-Generalship; and at the same time Mr. Monsell withdrew from the office of Postmaster-General, filled some months later by Dr. Lyon Playfair, a prominent independent among the Liberal members, and on more than one occasion an unsparing and dangerous critic of the Government policy. The same was true in an even greater degree of Mr. Vernon Harcourt, who before the close of the year became Solicitor-General, while the higher office of Attorney-General fell to another and very distinguished and able independent, Mr. Henry James. These last promotions were in consequence of the acceptance of the Chief Justiceship of the Common Pleas by Sir John Coleridge, and of the Mastership of the Rolls by Sir George Jessel, who had been Attorney and Solicitor-General respectively. The premature and unexpected death of Sir William Bovill, whose appointment dated from the short Conservative reign, opened the way to Sir John Coleridge's appointment.

The most popular, as the most important, of these changes was undoubtedly the return to office of Mr. John Bright, whose long illness had caused general sympathy, and who was now regarded with eyes and feelings curiously different from those with which but

a short time before he had been looked upon, when he was treated as a dangerous agitator and demagogue. In office he had shown himself singularly moderate, and on more than one occasion lately he had markedly separated himself from the more advanced votaries of the movement. None the less he was still a very popular man in the country, and likely to prove a tower of strength for the Government. At Birmingham 17,000 people assembled to congratulate and to hear him; and in a speech of upwards of an hour he first reviewed the measures passed by the present Government, the Irish Church Bill, the Irish Land Bill, the abolition of purchase in the army-in connexion with which he expressed a hope that the "corruption market" in the Established Church, namely, the sale of livings, might soon be abolished-the Ballot, and the Education Act.

On this latter subject the right hon. gentleman spoke at some length. He reminded his hearers that he took no part in the preparation of that Act, and knew nothing of what was going on in the political world during the discussions on the Bill in Parliament, being then too ill to read the debates or even to have them read to him. Then remarking that he was speaking, not as a member of the Cabinet, but as one of the members for Birmingham, Mr. Bright condemned the Education Act, on the grounds that it extended and confirmed the system which it ought to have superseded. It really encouraged denominational education, and it established Boards only where that system did not exist, whereas it should have attempted to establish Boards everywhere, and to bring the denominational schools under their control. The denominational system, Mr. Bright said, in consequence of the parochial organization of the Church, must be said to be a Church system; hence the Nonconformists were aggrieved, and justly aggrieved. With respect to the 25th clause, the right hon. gentleman said, "I do not think the clause was supposed capable of exciting the disapprobation which has arisen on account of it. For myself, I have not publicly, in any public meeting, discussed the subject since it has come before the nation; but I will say what I think with regard to the question of education through the sects. I believe that it is not possible ever to make it truly national or truly good. The fact is-and I think we all feel it-that the public do not take great interest in denominational schools. The Church cares nothing for Dissent, and with regard to this question, Dissent cares just as little for the Church. The people regard these schools as church schools and chapel schools. They do not regard them as public and national schools, and as supporting a great system in which the whole people unite for a great and national object. Then, again, with regard to the School Boards, I do not know that the Government of that day were responsible for the mode of electing School Boards. It was not certainly in the original memorandum of the Bill which I was permitted to see; but the mode of electing appears to me about the worst for purposes of general and national education that could possibly have been designed. When a contest comes for a School