NEWS OF THE WEEK.
IN the House of Lords on Friday week (January 25th) Lord Salisbury, in proposing the Resolution of condolence and congratulation, made a speech which can truly be said to have been worthy of the occasion. It was marked by deep feeling, and yet it was free from all exaggeration or want of proportion. As the Minister who served her longest as Premier. his testimony to the Queen's great public qualities is of historical importance, and will always be cited as the proof of what the nation owed to her statesmanship. She helped her advisers with the wisest of advice and impressed them with a profound sense of her "penetration, almost intuition." No Minister in her long reign ever disregarded her advice without afterwards feeling that he bad incurred a dangerous responsibility. "She had an extraordinary knowledge of what her people would think. I have said for years that I always thought that when I knew what the Queen thought I knew certainly what view her subjects would take, and espe- cially the middle classes of her subjects. Such was the extraordinary penetration of her mind. Yet she never adhered to her own conceptions obstinately. On the con- trary, she was full of concession and consideration ; and she spared no effort—I might almost say she shrank from no sacrifice—to make the task of conducting this difficult Government more easy to her advisers than it would other- wise have been." That is a picture of the Queen as Sovereign as correct as it is striking. Lord Salisbury ended his speech by expressing his assurance that the King would walk in his mother's footsteps. Lord Kimberley, who followed, spoke with equal feeling and in mach the same strain.
