NEWS OF THE WEEK.
1_1 GREAT blow has fallen this week upon the Liberal party. Mr. _4. -1._ Gladstone, in a letter to Earl Granville, dated the 11th inst., has announced his final decision to retire from the leadership of the Liberal party. He has reviewed since last March "a number of considerations, both public and private, of which a portion, and these not by any means insignificant, were not in existence " then, and says, " at the age of sixty-five, and after forty-two years of a laborious public life, I am entitled to retire on the present opportunity. This retirement is dictated to me by my personal views as to the best method of spending the closing years of my life." He will cordially support any arrangements for the "treat- anent of general business, and for the advantage or convenience of The Liberal party," but he is for a short time engaged " on a special matter which occupies him closely." Earl Granville expresses in reply the profound regret of his colleagues and the party, regret alreas,dy expressed privately to Mr. Gladstone, and based as much on " considerations of public advantage for the future," as on " our sense of your great services, and our sentiments of personal .admiration and attachment."
