Mr. Bright is losing his caution. He intends, we imagine,
to take office ; but on Thursday he made some remarks which for a coming Cabinet Minister were, to say the least of it, rash. Mr. Gladstone likes a full Treasury, and will not thank him for raising the cry of a "free breakfast-table," that is, the abolition of the taxes on tea, coffee, sugar, and toast, which is taxed by the shil- ling duty on corn. The old women will, but then old women do not vote, and men who do, want Mr. Bright to turn his mind to the rates, and leave the taxes alone. Nobody feels taxed, and everybody feels rated. Some of his colleagues, at all events, will look askance at his proposal about the land laws,— which, though sensible and moderate, is not in next session's programme,—and there are very few in England who will not read his remarks on war without a wince. He would not ap- parently arm to save a free people from being crushed by a foreign invasion, condemns all our wars since the Revolution as mere "acts of lunacy," and would apparently disband both the Army and Navy, thus openly inviting assault. We suppose Mr. Bright does not mean this, but remembering that he said "Perish, Savoy!" that he does not approve the only substitute for armies, the drilling of the whole people, and that he holds campaigns like Marlborough's, which saved the freedom of Holland, to be acts of madness, it be- comes difficult to think of him as the head of a great military monarchy like India.
