NEWS OF THE WEEK.
MR. DLSRAELI'S " word of power " to the electors of Bucking- hamshire came forth this day week as if it had been conjured into life by our demand ; and very powerful it was—in a verbal poiut of view. It recited that the Prime Minister had enjoyed " the entire and unbroken confidence of the Earl of Derby for twenty years," that he is, therefore, "thoroughly acquainted with his policy," and that he has "pursued that policy without deviation ;"—unless it were, perchance, in that little game of using Lord Mayo as a political straw to find whether the wind was blowing in the direction of "levelling up." He takes credit, of course, for carrying in 1867 and 1868 a Parliamentary Reform "broad in its principles," but for his high principle in successfully resisting which, — or rather something much less broad, — he had taken credit in his address to the same electors in 1865. He insists justly on the admirable conduct of foreign affairs during his administration, and on the success both moral and physical of the Abyssinian campaign. He rather unhappily congratulates the country on the increased strength of the Navy,—the forty little wooden ships added to it by Sir John Pakington, on the comple- tion of guns for our fortresses which have only been tested since the resignation of the Liberal Government, and on the conversion of the Enfield rifles, which would have been delayed for years but for the Prussian war. He is great on the new office of Comptroller instituted in the War Office, which he describes inaccurately. He desaants on the energy and moderation with which the Irish disaffection has been suppressed, and professes the greatest alacrity for any Irish reforms which are "consistent with the rights of property and the maintenance of our Protestant institutions."
