NEWS OF THE WEEK.
THE week has been remarkable for a game of puss-in-the-corner I played by the Cabinet. Lord John Russell's farewell to the House of Commons has been followed by the resignation of Lord Wodehonse, Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs, and this again by the long-expected retirement of Lord Herbert of Lea. The coast was clear for the introduction of new strength, but new faces trouble the aged, and to avoid them half the Ministry are shifted into each other's berths. The new posts do not suit the old men. Sir Cornewall Lewis, who is an excellent Home Secretary, is to be made Minister at War, a post for which he is about as well fitted as an Oxford Vice-Chancellor would be. Sir George Grey is made Home Secretary, or appellate judge of the empire, though his health had compelled him to seek the shady corner of the Cabinet; Mr. Cardwell, whose grand quality is industry, is appointed to the Duchy of Lancaster, in which there is nothing to do, and the Secretaryship for Ireland, which demands above all things discretion, is to be assigned to Sir Robert Peel. Then Lord de Grey and Ripon, who might have hoped to be Secretary at War, but that youth is now an official vice, is, it is said, to go back as Under Se- cretary, Mr. Baring is to rejoin Sir Charles Wood, and Mr. Layard to become Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs, an appointment which, if it teaches him nothing else, will instruct him in the excel- lence of humility. To a talking member for Southwark who has seen Nineveh, the defence of our foreign policy, with Earl Russell for taskmaster in one House and Lord Palmerston for pedagogue in the other, must be a pleasant task. The general effect of these changes and rumours of change on the public mind has been most unfavour- able to the Ministry. They indicate not only internal weakness, but a total want of sympathy with all the outside sections of the great Liberal party. Lord Palmerston can no more keep his Cabinet a close borough than Earl Grey, and the effort will only precipi- tate his almost inevitable fall.
