In many respects the new Cabinet is a, very strong
one, especially as including Lord Spencer (the President of the Council), whose adherence to a Cabinet universally believed to be a Home-rule Cabinet, is a great puzzle to the external world. The oddest of the appointments is perhaps that of Sir William Harcourt as Chancellor of the Exchequer, —an appointment certainly boding a popular Budget, in the sense of one putting the additional taxation needful on the well-to-do, and not on the mass of the electors. Lord Granville is to be Colonial Secretary ; Lord Kimberley, Indian Secretary ; and Lord Ripon, First Lord of the Admiralty. Lord Rosebery takes the important place of Foreign Secretary, where it is hoped that he may distinguish himself, and also prove agreeable to Prince Bismarck. Mr. Childers is to be Home Secretary ; Mr. Chamberlain (who declined the Admiralty), the head of the Local Government Board ; and Mr. Mundella, President of the Board of Trade. Mr. Campbell-Bannerman becomes War Secretary, where it is expected that he will be a great success. Sir Farrer Herschell, who becomes Lord Chancellor, is re- garded by all competent judges as likely to prove the very best Lord Chancellor of recent times, equal even, if not (as a younger man) superior, to Lord Selborne. Mr. Trevelyan, who has astonished the world by taking office, is to be Secre- tary for Scotland ; and Mr. John Morley, Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland. His Lord-Lieutenant, however, has not yet been appointed ; and when he is, is likely to be regarded, we think, as Lord-Lieutenant to the new Irish Secre- tary, rather than as his chief.
