2 AUGUST 1968, Page 12

A hundred years ago From the 'Spectator'. 1 August 1868—The

Session is at last over, and Mr. Disraeli either thinks, or thinks it well to say, that it has been a singularly successful one, on which the country is to be con- gratulated. The Lord Mayor entertained her Majesty's Ministers at the Mansion House on Wednesday, and Mr. Disraeli took the opportunity to say that the condition of Ireland "ought to afford us the utmost congratulation." In that case certainly Mr. Disraeli is not hard to please,—at least after dinner. His reason for considering that the state of Ireland was a subject for "the utmost congratulation," was that Ministers had not been obliged to avail themselves of the power given them by the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act for a considerable period.