Of the sub-Cabinet appointments, the most weighty is the Vice-
Presidency of the Council of Education, which has, with singular moderation, been accepted by Mr. W. E. Forster, without, strange to say, a seat in the Cabinet. This is a bitter disappoiutment to us and all sincere Radicals, who see in Mr. Forster quite the most weighty of all the Liberal leaders in the Commons, after Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Bright. Though not so brilliant as Mr. Lowe, be is a man of far wider and stronger judgment, and is almost without a rival in what Lord Bacon calls " counsel." The Times says that the new Vice-President of the Board of Education will be " virtually Minister of Education ;" but as we never did understand what " virtually" meant, we wish sonic explanation had been given. Is a Ministry of Education to be made as the last Government proposed, and Mr. Forster to have it, with, of course, a seat in the Cabinet? Or is it understood that the Cabinet will defer to the judgment of an outside Minister ? Of course, that is absurd, and we hope the former solution may be the true one. But anyhow, even the temporary exclusion of Mr. Forster seems to us a grave mistake. His accession to the office of Vice-President will, however, be a great satisfaction to all the friends of education. The one department which most needs a strong and firm hand has got one at last, after suffering from the incompetence of the most incompetent member of the late Cabinet.
