NEWS OF THE WEEK.
• .HE Conservative reaction is a real one, and there is nothing
A-z--sr the Liberal party to do but exhibit all the fortitude and resignation they can muster, and go out of power. We hope, for reasons stated elsewhere, that the Premier will act upon Mr. Disraeli's precedent and not upon the regular one, but if he has hesitated, which we doubt, we can scarcely wonder. He perceives What the country scarcely does, how vast the change is, how it will affect every section of public policy, the relation of Britain to the world, the attitude of classes towards each other, the position of every interest, the management of every organisation. If the Tory Government lasts five years, he himself and many of his colleagues -will be elderly men, and when the Liberals next reach power it may be with new ideas, and must be with many new leaders. He knows how many beneficial designs he had, how many promises he must leave unfulfilled, how many things of importance must, in his judgment, for some time go wrong. It is not a light thing to lay down the British Premiership, but it has to be done, and Mr. Gladstone's best friends are those who advise him that it should be done quickly.
