is no doubt that, whatever be the effect hereafter, it has strengthened Government for the present.

It is not, however, so much the mere sum of 1,200,000l. which is what Sir Cornwall Lewis asked for, as the critical state of our finances in general, which stimulated opposition to this measure. The gradually-increasing gap between our revenue and our expenditure, and the falsification of promise after promise, and device after device of Mr. Gladstone is really no laughing matter. And, notwithstanding the strictures which have been passed on Mr. Disraeli's speeches, we think that his three several exposures of Mr. Gladstone's unsubstantial edifice, namely, on the 8th of April, and the 8th and 19th of May, will hereafter be reckoned among his ablest and wisest efforts. It is easy to say they were delivered at the wrong moment, that they ought to have led to a division, or to give vent to any other taunt that may for the moment avert attention from their truth. But when these temBut when these temporary devices are exhausted, the speeches themselves will be remembered as specimens of sagacity, perspicuity, and imperious logic which have seldom been surpassed in the House of Commons. Mr. Gladstone's defence on all such occasions has been this. Gentlemen opposite, he says, do not understand the principles of taxation which the last twenty years have established. The more taxes you remit the greater the consumption of commodities, and the greater the consumption of commodities the more money in the long run will find its way into the exchequer. No doubt this would be very sound reasoning if what he took off with one hand he did not reimpose with the other. No doubt it would be a justification of his policy if what he took off with one hand he only reimposed with the other for a limited period; while, that is, the revenue of the country was adjusting itself to its changed conditions. But the remission of taxes which leaves us every year with the most odious of all taxes more firmly fixed upon our shoulders is a boon to which we cannot reconcile ourselves. The most singular circumstance in connection with the permanent income tax is that it does not accomplish even its avowed object. It does not make up for the loss of indirect taxes. For the last two years the deficit is seven millions and a-half. So that we are using up our war income in times of peace, and thereby, as Mr. Disraeli pointed out, destroying one of the chief sources of that respect with which foreign Powers have regarded us, while at the same time we fail to balance our accounts, and get a revenue equal to our wants. These are the lessons which several great debates have taught us at various intervals through the session. And we think that it was a great mistake in Mr. Walpole to allow any consideration to deter him from pressing his amendment to Mr. Staniland's motion on the 3rd of June. He might, indeed, have had good reason to know, what has been since commonly asserted, that the economical liberals would have all turned round and voted against him. But even then, we think, he ought to have stood fast. The success of that amendment, moral or actual, would have shown Government that the House was in earnest and might have convinced them that at length it was time to pause in their cowardly submission to the Chancellor.

If Lord Palmerston had chosen to go out, he must have chosen to go back again had Lord Derby declined to take office. But to allow a menace of this kind to be kept hanging over the head of the House of Commons, and to prevent all effective opposition to official mismanagement, is surely not the act of either a wise, a powerful, or a patriotic party.

On many other subjects, however, we have reason to congratulate our readers. The ill-advised scheme introduced by Mr. Lowe for revolutionizing our system of education, though far from being thoroughly subverted, has met with so warm a reception as to afford us reasonable hopes of its complete discomfiture hereafter. On the 13th of February the course which Government intended to pursue was explained by Lord Granville in the House of Lords, and Mr. Lowe in the House of Commons. This statement produced from the Bishop of Oxford on the 4th of March a forcible and animated exposure of the ministerial scheme. This was followed by a speech from Lord Lyttelton on the 7th, which, with some reservations, echoed the tone of the Bishop's speech. Lord St. Leonards followed on the same side on the 14th, and such exceedingly faint praise was bestowed on Mr. Lowe's proposition by the Bishop of London that Lord Granville, anxious as he naturally was to make the most of make the most of any show of support, was obliged to confess that it was damning. This determined and unanimous opposition, on the part of noble Lords and Prelates by no means accustomed to act together in public life, had to some extent the desired effect. Mr. Walpole proposed a series of resolutions in the House of Commons to which, after a long debate, the Government was compelled to yield, and on the 28th of March Mr. Lowe came forward to announce that the Revised Code was withdrawn. When, however, the Code, as amended by Mr. Lowe, was again submitted to the House it did not give that general satisfaction which had been at first anticipated. While one or two blundering provisions had been cancelled, some of its most objectionable features were continued in a modified shape; and it was announced by the Conservative leaders that, though unwilling for the present to offer any further opposition, even this thrice Revised Code could only be tolerated as an experiment. We fear, indeed, that little real change can be looked for while Mr. Lowe continues where he is. The case of Crishall, a parish in Essex, brought forward by the Bishop of Rochester on the 5th of June sufficiently shows the animus with which Mr. Lowe is determined to administer his department. Other such cases were quoted by the Bishops of Worcester, S. Asaph, and S. David's, prelates who cannot be suspected of hostility to the present Government, by which it clearly appeared that Mr. Lowe had been withholding money from schools in connection with the National Society without having the slightest official or legal right so to do. Of course, if individuals are thus at liberty to substitute their own "discretion" for the plain meaning of an Act of Parliament, we might just as well have no Parliament at all, and no opposition to the Government.

On questions peculiar to the Church we have

fortunately nothing to record but a series of Conservative successes. The Marriages of Affinity Bill was defeated on the 12th of March by a majority of thirty-two. The Clergy Relief Bill was read a first time on the same day; was referred to a Select Committee on the 9th of April; and was finally, July the 9th, defeated on the third reading by a majority of ten. Sir John Trelawny's Bill for the Abolition of Church-rates was defeated on the second reading by a majority of one. And Mr. Sotheron Estcourt having on the 24th of June withdrawn the resolutions which, according to promise, he had introduced, the question now remains in the hands of the Government. The Nonconformists' Burial Bill was withdrawn on the 8th of July. In the House of Lords, Lord Ebury's Bill for the Amendment of the Act of Uniformity was withdrawn on the 29th of May. And last, but not least, the subject of "Dilapidations," so practically interesting to the whole body of the clergy, has been dealt with by the Archbishop of Canterbury, whose Bill is now under the consideration of a Select Committee.

Of Law Reform two important measures have been successfully carried through the Legislature, namely, the Transfer of Land Bill, and the Lunacy Regulation Bill; though whether the working of either will equal the expectations of their authors is held doubtful by the gentlemen of the bar. Of measures more immediately affecting Parliament, though a variety have been introduced, none have had the luck to pass. A solitary whisper of reform was heard from Mr. Cox on the 14th of February, but was never repeated. Mr. White, on the 12th of February, introduced a motion for expediting the business of the House; but as the tendency of his plan, in common with many others devised for the same purpose, was to curtail the expression of grievances, those great constitutional champions, Lord Palmerston and Mr. Disraeli, united in opposing it. About a month afterwards an attempt was made by Lord Robert Montagu to bring the expenditure of Government more immediately under the control of the House of Commons; but the House would have nothing to do with it, and rejected it by three to one. The Ballot, having stolen a majority on the first reading, was defeated by a great majority on the second; and the Conveyance of Voters' Bill, introduced by Mr. Collier, and supported by Government, was thrown out early in the session by a majority of thirty.

Of what may be called miscellaneous subjects we have had the Thames Embankment Bill, the Inns of Court Bill, the Prize-money debate, and the Night Poaching Bill. The first of these has created an amount of excitement which very few political questions have the power to kindle. The issue at which it has arrived is the natural and legitimate issue, and, as such, has been loyally and gracefully accepted by the Duke of Buccleuch. The benchers of the Inns of Court have been respited for the present, and as the conduct of Mr. Digby Seymour has probably taught them the folly of clemency, they will perhaps not again repeat the offence which has drawn down the indignation of the whole rodent tribe upon their heads. The debates on the Kertch and Yenikale prize-money have been

perhaps the most damaging to Government of any that have occurred during the session. And the public will not readily forget that it was actually in contemplation by Government to throw over the claimants altogether, on the plea, forsooth, of public economy. The Night Poaching Bill has not yet passed through its last stages. Measures of this kind are at a peculiar disadvantage at the present day. Most newspaper writers in London are as profoundly ignorant of the true bearings of this question as their own inkstands; but the "liberal" journals are filled with denunciations of the measure which would raise a smile in any one but a cockney, whether Radical or Tory. There is no choice between the enactment of some such Bill-we do not say this Bill-and the total abolition of the game laws.

In Foreign and Colonial politics we have little to record, though that little is of vast importance. Parliament has shown great wisdom and self-control in abstaining, as far as was possible, from all discussion on America. At the commencement of the session. the public was still smarting under the irritation. naturally produced by the seizure of the Trent packet. But the temptation to invectives and recriminations was overborne; and though a few discussions took place in February and March on the propriety of breaking the blockade, and in June and July on the propriety of acknowledging the South, we have neither a great debate nor a single division to record upon either of these subjects. Parliament as well as the public has public has pretty well made up its mind upon the merits of the quarrel. But it is easy to see that the longer we abstain from interference the better the position we shall hold. And though the distress of our cotton manufactures is a powerful incentive to action, it is to be hoped that private benevolence will save us from the necessity of intervention, until American affairs have reached that crisis at which it ceases to be impolitic or unjust. When the folly of all attempts on the part of the North to reconquer the seceding states, by the utmost possible exertions, shall have become manifest to itself, as it has long been to the whole world, then, and not till then, will the mediation of England become right. Meantime the magnitude of the interests at stake in this afflicting war have diverted our attention from other subjects, in which we are not lightly interested. Debates both in the Lords and Commons on the state of our affairs in Mexico have certainly revealed a rather truckling and subservient policy on the part of Her Majesty's Government. They have allowed England to be made a catspaw of by the French Emperor, as they also did to some extent in China. We have now, however, withdrawn our neck from the noose, and we trust that during the recess, that period so fatal to Lord Russell, we shall not be drawn into it again. into it again. But the mistakes we may have committed in Mexico shrink into insignificance by the side of the terrible responsibilities we are now incurring in China. In a debate which took place in the House of Commons on the 8th of last month it was elicited that we had pledged ourselves to obligations of the most arduous and extensive nature. We are to assist Prince Kung in putting down the Taepings; we are to collect his revenue,

remodel his army and navy, and supply him with European officers. It was by these very steps that our factories at Calcutta and Madras expanded into a vast empire. Sic India crevit. Are we to repeat the process in China, and have another Asiatic possession to conquer, to govern, and to pay for? Such were the questions very obviously suggested by the last debate upon the subject; questions that were by no means rendered less alarming by the replies of Mr. Layard and Lord Palmerston.

Various discussions have taken place from time to time on the affairs of Italy, of Turkey, and of Poland; but beyond the announcement by Mr. Layard, on the 14th of March, that Turkey was steadily progressing, both socially, politically, and financially, the debates contained little of importance. A more important point in connection with foreign affairs was raised by Mr. Horsfall, who, on the 11th of March, revived the proposal of adopting the other half of the principle of which the one half was conceded in 1856. We then, for the first time, agreed that a neutral flag should make neutral goods, such neutral goods being not contraband of

war.

Since then it has often been contended that we should complete this step by allowing even hostile flags to carry private property unmolested. Such was the gist of Mr. Horsfall's resolution; and we do not know that it would be wholly unwise to adopt it. Almost all the advantage which our naval superiority gave to us was thrown away at the Treaty of Paris. Because, of course, while we could seize neutral vessels carrying hostile cargoes, we drove all neutral Powers to employ English shipping, and so became the carriers of the world. But now this But now this advantage would fall to some neutral Power liable to capture by neither side. The House, however, refused to entertain the proposal, though Lord Palmerston was obliged to promise that he would give it his serious consideration.

The Financial condition of India, the Canadian Militia Bill, the Jamaica Loan Bill, and the general subjects of Colonial fortification, and Colonial expenditure, form the remaining topics of the session. The three first of these are eminently unsatisfactory. All Mr. Laing's boasted financial skill seems to have produced nothing, or worse than nothing; that is, the most hopeless confusion in the mind of Sir Charles Wood. All we find out with certainty is that a deficit still exists, and that it is only "expected to disappear at the close of the current year." The rejection by the Canadian Parliament of the Bill for embodying the Canadian Militia has been discussed in both Houses, and is, we fear, an ominous symptom. It certainly forms a curious comment on the debates of the 4th and 21st of March, on the former of which Mr. A. Mills proposed that "colonies exercising the rights of self-government ought to take the main responsibility of providing for their own security," while on the latter it was proposed by Mr. Baxter that "the cost of fortifications in a self-governed country was not a proper charge on the imperial treasury." These motions, These motions, as things stood, were both withdrawn; but if Canada perseveres in her intention, public opinion on the subject will rapidly undergo a change. The Jamaica Loan Bill consists simply in the renunciation, with as good a grace as we can assume, of a debt

owing to us by the Jamaica Legislature. The money was originally lent to put down a negro insurrection, and now that the coloured race have got a majority in the assembly they refuse to pay a penny. It appears that it can't be helped, and so we must even make the best of it. Such is the outline of a session which, if not strikingly eventful, will long be remembered in connection with great events abroad, and with the wonderful rally of the Conservative party at home, which has, for almost the first time in our annals, placed Parliament in the singular position of being governed by "Her Majesty's Opposition.”

Austria and Hungary.

HEN, at the beginning of the present year, men were forecasting the chances of tranquillity or disturbance on the continent of Europe, the country which the general apprehension pointed out as likely above all others to be the scene of disquietude and tumult, if not of actual war, was Austria. The new kingdom which had recently sprung up in its south-western frontier made no secret of its desire to extend its dominions at the expense of the ancient empire of the Cæsars. Its most extensive and important province threatened it with revolt. Neither danger has as yet been realized. On the one side the Italians have shown such a want of genius for government, and of administrative capacity, and are still so embarrassed by their own divisions, as well as by the French occupation of Rome, that the danger of any aggression on their part is manifestly far more remote than it seemed a year ago. remote, indeed, if we also take into consideration the great difficulties, civil as well as military, which it would have to encounter, that we may for the present dismiss it from our consideration altogether, with the single remark that the cry of Italy for the Italians, plausible as it is, and carrying, as it does, to the minds of many all the force of a logical demonstration, will no more give them Venetia than it will give them Yorkshire; since by far the greater part of Venetia is wholly alien to Italy. Some of its districts are peopled by Swiss; many by Germans. Some of its tribes are even Slavonians; comparatively few can boast even the slightest mixture of Italian blood.

So

The danger arising from the attitude assumed by Hungary is more serious, not only because internal rebellion is at all times a greater evil than the most formidable foreign aggression, but also because the discontented spirit in that great province being already existent and rampant, has a natural tendency to gain strength by continuance: yet, however specious and attractive the arguments put forward by Hungary may be, it is not difficult for bystanders to see that no people have ever had less cause for the suspicious discontent to which they have abandoned themselves, or for the peremptory rejection of their Sovereign's proposals than the Hungarians. It is now nearly a year and a-half ago since the Emperor, by a solemn and irrevocable deed, not only restored her former constitution to Hungary, but

frank and liberal spirit, and deserve to be accepted, because they will be beneficial to both parties. Even the party in Hungary most hostile to Austria shows that it is fully aware of the advantages of the alliance with us; but that alliance it can only have as a part of Austria. Moreover, if the approval, and friendship, and alliance of Great Britain be worth having, it is plain that the more powerful a State is the greater will be our temptation to cultivate and cherish an alliance with it. We wish, therefore, in We wish, therefore, in the first place, that Austria should be strong for her own sake in exact proportion as she is strong will be our inducement to wish that she should maintain that strength for our own. And, as the limbs are inseparable from the body, in desiring the greatness and prosperity of Austria, we desire the greatness and prosperity of all and each of her provinces, the most important of which, as we need not tell the Hungarians, is Hungary.

The Unification of Germany.

ALF-KIN as we are to the Prussians in blood, closely and happily allied as are the Royal families of the two countries, there is no State in Europe which more tries the temper of the British public. We do not, like some, look back seven or eight years, and remember against Prussia her neutrality during the Crimean war. On the contrary, we think she was quite justified in refusing to take part in that contest. She had nothing whatever to gain; and in similar circumstances England would have done just the same. Nor do we think of the "Macdonald affair;" although, thanks to the ridiculous bluster of the Times and Lord Palmerston, that very small matter made a louder noise in this country than all the objectionable parts of Prussian policy for the last ten years put together. It is since 1850 that the epoch of present importance begins. It is since then that the destinies of Germany have begun to shape themselves, and that those perils from without and strivings for unity within have arisen which every reflecting mind in this country cannot fail to watch with lively and ever-increasing interest.

Germany-we do not speak of the Courts, but of the people-longs for unity, or at least for a closer organization, such as is called for by the spirit of the times and the wants of the Fatherland. And it is to Prussia that the mass of the German nation has looked for the initiative in forwarding the popular desire. In 1848, when this desire first leapt up like a passion, the imperial crown of the Fatherland was within the grasp of the Prussian king. After coquetting and vacillating, he ended by refusing it; perhaps wisely. But again, in calmer and more moderate form, with more regard for established rights, and with a better discernment of the real difficulties of the case, the same desire, the same longing for a closer and better bond of union, pervades the German mind: again the Germans look to Prussia to take the initiative: and again, it is undeniable, a most grave responsibility lies upon the Prussian monarch and his councillors. The full extent of that responsibility, the immense dif

ficulties which beset the action of the Prussian Government, are but imperfectly appreciated in this country; we have reason to doubt whether they are soberly realized by the majority of the Prussian representatives themselves.

The contest between the Chambers and the Government which has been going on for the last twelve months is important not so much from the actual votes at issue as from the tendency on either side which it reveals. The elections show that the great majority of the Prussian people desire that the Government should become wholly Constitutional, and that the King shall yield to the votes of the Chambers as thoroughly as is the case in England. And it must be said that the Prussian people pursue their object with infinite moderation. There is no fear of a revolution: their loyalty is perfect, their patience is most exemplary. They respect the frank, honest, upright soldier who is now their king: they seem to be aware of his inaptitude to accommodate himself to a new position: they adhere to their purpose, but they show no desire to push matters to an extremity. We wish, however, that we were as sure of their wisdom as of their loyalty. The great cause of contention between King and Chambers is the Budget. As usual in almost all such struggles between King and Parliament the question is, who is to hold the purse-strings? The Chambers demand that every part of the Budget shall be voted by them, and that the King shall not-as has been the case hitherto-supplement the supplies voted by the Chamber by "extraordinary credits" ordained of his own power. Clearly the Chambers are entitled to insist on this. The Emperor of Austria has frankly yielded up this part of his ancient prerogative. Following in his wake, the Emperor of the French has lately done the same. Prussia, in past times a more constitutional monarchy than either, cannot lag behind. But then, what is the point upon which "the party of progress" have chosen to raise this issue? The very one upon which the King, from his antecedents, was sure to be most obstinate; and one which, if Prussia does aspire to the leadership of Germany, needs to be handled very delicately. The question is as to reducing the cost of the military establishments. Like all old soldiers, the King feels keenly on this subject. That cannot be helped, even a king's susceptibilities cannot be respected against the wishes of a nation. But a graver consideration is, Is not the King right? Is he not right as regards the general safety of the Fatherland, not unmenaced on the Rhine? Is he not right, also, as regards the position which his people wish Prussia to assume in Germany? If Prussia is to take the initiative in obtaining the abolition of those party-walls which so long kept Germany cut up into a cumbrous congeries of petty States-if she is to demand a remodelling of the Confederation, on more popular principles and in more effective organization, has the Prussian Government the least chance of being listened to if she have not a due amount of power as well as of argument on her side? A strong policy requires a strong army. The Prussian Chambers desire the one but withhold the other. This cannot be. Either the Chambers should abandon their aspirations, and should cease to urge the Go