NEWS OF THE WEEK.

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THE crisis has ended ; and on Tuesday Mr. Gladstone announced that Lord Salisbury had accepted office. In forming his Government he has obviously found it necessary to conciliate the old Conservatives as well as the Tory Democrats, and his Cabinet consists of the old men :—Lord Iddesleigh (First Lord of the Treasury), Lord Cranbrook (Lord President), Lord Harrowby, formerly Lord Saudon (Privy Seal), the Duke of Richmond (Board of Trade), Lord Carnarvon (Viceroy of Ireland), Sir M. Hicks-Beach (Chancellor of the Exchequer), Colonel Stanley (Colonies), Mr. Smith (War Office), Sir It.

• Cross (Home Office), Mr. E. Stanhope (Vice-President), and Lord J. Manners (Postmaster.-General), plus Sir Harding° Giffard (Lord Chancellor), Lord R. Churchill (India Office), Lord G. Hamilton (Admiralty), and Mr. Gibson (Chancellor of Ireland). The Cabinet, though not larger than Mr. Gladstone's, is distinctly too large, and, though the offices have been fairly distributed, its debating strength in the Commons will not be great. The time for debate is, however, short, and it is probable that the centre of interest will be transferred to the Lords, where Lord Salisbury will be Premier, Leader of the Upper House, Secretary for Foreign Affairs, and dictator of his party all in one. One wonders what the inner Cabinet—which, in practice, must always exist—will be like, and whether Lord Randolph Churchill will be in it.

The more important subordinate offices have also been filled up. Sir M. Ridley will represent the Foreign Secretary in the Commons. Mr. H. S. Northcote will be Under-Secretary for the Home Department, Lord Donoughmore for War, Lord Danraven for the Colonies, and Lord Harris—the cricket man —for India. Sir W. Hart-Dyke takes the Secretaryship for Ireland ; Mr. Arthur Balfour is made President of the Local Government Board, remaining outside the Cabinet; Mr. Chaplin becomes Chancellor of the Duchy, and will, it is said, manage the "Contagious Diseases (Animals) Act," instead of Mr. Stanhope ; Mr. D. Plunket becomes First Commissioner of Works ; Sir Henry Holland, Secretary to the Treasury; and Mr. Akers-Douglas, chief Whip. The Law offices are not filled; but if Mr. Webster can win Launceston he will be Attorney-General, and Mr. Gorst will probably be offered the Solicitor-Generalship. There is little to object to in these appointments, though Mr. Chaplin will probably quarrel with all the citizens about meat ; Mr. D. Plunket is absurdly thrown away, and the Attorney-General has never been in Parliament. The only strong new man brought in is Sir H. Holland, and one strong, though not new, man is left out. Mr. James Lowther is a man we never agree with, but he has real capacity for electioneering ; and if he does not resent his exclusion, he will be the first Lowther of Christian temper. Mr. Clarke also has not been well treated ; but somebody is always badly treated in a new Ministry, and it is said his seat was not secure. The change of Ministry has been followed by the usual shower of honours. The retiring Premier makes (1) Sir Nathaniel Rothschild, (2) Mr. E. Baring, (3) Sir A. Hobhouse, (4) Sir Robert Collier, and (5) Sir R. Lingen peers. Of these, the first is the king of finance, and is said to have rendered services in Egypt; the second is head of the great house of Baring; the third has done good service in India and England, and has a sort of claim to the peerage of his uncle, Lord Broughton ; the fourth was a good Attorney-General, reluctantly passed over in 1880; and the fifth has been permanent head of the Treasury. He is succeeded by Sir R. E. Welby, a very capable man. Three or four peers, not of political mark, receive promotions, or English peerages ; Sir Henry James is sworn of the Privy Council, a well.deserved honour; and Mr. Millais and Mr. Watts, the artists, obtain well-earned baronetcies, as does Mr. C. Tennant, a Scotch M.P. Three vacant Garters are granted, one to Lord Kimberley, who deserves one, and the others to Lords Northampton and Sefton, who may also deserve them, though the public does not know why. Lord Sherbrooke also obtains the red ribbon of the Bath. Lord Salisbury, on his side, makes only one peer voluntarily, Mr. Rowland Winn, who for five years has held the thankless office of Whip to the minority; but Sir Harding° Giffard, Sir Stafford Northcote, and Mr. Gibson also receive peerages. The list is a curious and muddled one, but the ribbons do not signify, and nobody has been made a peer on either side without some assignable reason ; while Sir S. Northcote, Mr. Gibson, and Sir A. Hobhouse will add distinctly to the strength of the Upper House.

It is obvious that Lord Salisbury really conceived that he could produce some effect on the minds of the Liberals by refusing to complete the final stage of the Redistribution Bill. Yesterday week he assured the House of Lords that as there was no responsible Government yet in power, he must decline to consider the Commons' objections to the Lords' amendments, and moved the adjournment of the House till Tuesday, and carried the adjournment against Lord Kimberley by 124 votes to 56. This proceeding had no meaning, unless Lord Salisbury held that, by suspending the animation of the Redistribution Bill, he should gain some power over the Liberals, and retain his grasp over an inducement for the Liberals to meet him halfway which would disappear the moment the Reform Bill was passed. If this, however, was his calculation, he calculated amiss. On Tuesday it was evident that Lord Salisbury had gained nothing but loss of time by his suspension of the Redistribution Bill, and the amendments to which the Commons were opposed were dropped and the Bill finally passed. It is now the law of the land.

On Wednesday Mr. crladstone read the correspondence between himself and the Queen, on the one hand, and between Lord Salisbury and the Queen on the other. The drift of these letters was that Lord Salisbury wished to commit the Liberals, through their leaders, first to giving the Government all the days for which Supply, or Ways and Means, or the Appropriation Bill, were set down, and next, to acquiescing in meeting the deficiency by Exchequer Bills, in case no other proposal beyond the extra 2d. in the pound of income-tax should be made to the House of Commons. Mr. Gladstone, in reply to this, could not see his way to giving any such assurance without interfering with the liberty of the House of Commons, though he declared his firm belief that no difficulty would be made about meeting the financial requirements of the Government, or about helping the Government to wind up the ordinary business of the Session. And Mr. Gladstone assured the Queen that the late Government made this declaration, and. intended to apply it, in the same spirit in which they entered on the recent negotiations respecting the Redistribution Bill.

would not be content, and pressed for some more explicit engagement,—quite ignoring the fact that, conceivably enough, circumstances might arise under which the Opposition would by no means be willing to vote the supplies, though, under ordinary circumstances, they would never even contemplate the course of raising any difficulty in the matter. Lord Salisbury's point was, that both parties had been much more explicit in their mutual engagements with regard to the Redistribution Bill, which is, no doubt, true enough ; but there the discussion was limited to a particular subject on which it was easy to define the practical concessions to be made. This was not the case in relation to Lord Salisbury's present demands ; and, of course, Mr. Gladstone pursued the right course in absolutely declining to give any general pledges which might subsequently be misinterpreted. And Lord Salisbury had to waive his demands without taking anything by them. Indeed, Mr. Gladstone ended just where he had begun.

At a meeting of the Conservative Party, held on Thursday at the Carlton Club, Lord Salisbury stated that he had found it impossible to refuse the Queen's command to form a Government, "especially when it became quite evident that the late Government were certainly not prepared to resume the position which they had surrendered," a statement which overshot the truth. He spoke in a cordial spirit of the good faith of his opponents, and declared his belief that they would be fully prepared to accord all reasonable facilities to the new Government in conducting the necessary business of the country. He did not believe that the Liberal lecturers had any sound foundation for their prophecies of an immense Liberal majority; and he ended by the somewhat emphatic and striking remark that "a timorous policy would be an unwise, if not a fatal one."

In the House of Lords on the same evening, Lord Salisbury eplained that he had formed a Government, and based his decision to do so on Mr. Gladstone's supposed refusal to return to office in any case,—which was not an accurate statement of the case. The Queen, however, had pressed very strongly on Lord Salisbury the mischief to the State from the want of a responsible Government, and had given him her personal assurance that Mr. Gladstone's disclaimer for himself and his colleagues of any wish to embarrass the new Government, might be taken to imply all that Lord Salisbury could fairly expect in the way of support from his opponents. Under these circumstances Lord Salisbury had thought it his duty to comply with her Majesty's command, and was not disposed to be intimidated by the prophecies of the Liberals, who gave him till the Election, and no longer. He could not forget that Lord Palmerston's Government of 1855, which, it was said, would not outlast the long frost, remained in office, with one not very long interval, for ten years.

Lord Granville replied that Mr. Gladstone had never refused to return to power, in case Lord Salisbury had failed to form a Government ; that, on the contrary, he had steadily asserted that Lord. Salisbury's failure would put the situation in quite a new light, and had said expressly on Monday last (22nd inst.) that "if Lord Salisbury failed, though he could not in that case promise her Majesty smooth water," "a great duty lay upon any one holding his position to use his best efforts as far as depended upon him, not to leave the Queen without a Government." As to Lord Salisbury's implied expectation that he was to continue in office for ten years, Lord Granville would leave to the noble Marquis "all the pleasures and advantages which such self.confidence might inspire in his mind and in the minds of his supporters."

On Monday Sir Charles Mike made a speech at Chelsea, in which he exposed very effectually the absolute hollowness of Lord Salisbury's pretext that the Redistribution Bill ought not to be passed without a responsible Government to answer for it. At the time the Bill was agreed to, and at the time it passed through all but its last stage in the House of Lords, there was a responsible Government in power ; and not only so, but a responsible Government which had obtained the assent of the Opposition to its provisions. What is the difference between passing the Bill thus agreed to between the two parties on the day before the Government was to be defeated, and passing it the day after it had been defeated ? In either case alike the responsible Government, which had agreed to it, would have disappeared before the Act came into operation. In either case alike the Opposition, which had also agreed to it, would probably be in power when it came into operation. In the same speech Sir Charles Dilke made a rather ostentatious announcement that it is Mr. Chamberlain's and his own intention to give up the first holiday they can command to inquiry into the condition of Ireland on the spot. This looks a, little like announcing that Mr. Chamberlain and Sir Charles Dunce are going to solve the Irish problem without much relation to the opinions of their colleagues. Moreover, it is hardly possible for ex-Ministers to go to Ireland without being plied by all sorts of influences, the real significance of which they will hardly discern. In the first place, they will be the objects of a great deal of Parnellite hostility. There is nothing the Parnellites dread more than having the wind taken out of their sails. In the next place; they will find themselves betrayed into all sorts of private remarks, the drift of which will leak out as if by pure accident, and which they will be unable satisfactorily to disown, though it will be most embarrassing for them to be bound by these remarks. We very much doubt whether far more dust will not be thrown into the eyes of ex-Ministers visiting Ireland, with a view to the policy of decentralisation, than any knowledge derived from the study of the question on the spot will be adequate to remove.

Sir Charles Mice's announcement of his own intention mid that of Mr. Chamberlain to go to Ireland to study the Irish question has been received in a very angry spirit by the National League. At a meeting of the National League at Limerick on Wednesday, a resolution was adopted unanimously protesting against their proposed visit as "most unwelcome and distasteful to the Irish people." United Ireland speaks of Mr. Chamberlain in the most vindictive fashion :—"This gentleman," it is remarked, "who has been a party to every act of despotism which Messrs. Forster, Trevelyan, and Spencer perpetrated in Ireland for the last five years, no sooner gets his heels clear of Downing Street than he has the effrontery to attempt to pose as the champion and vindicator of Irish freedom and the advocate of Irish rights." That means, no doubt, that the Irish Party are not disposed to let Mr. Chamberlain and Sir Charles Dilke take the wind out of their sails. But it means also that their visit to Ireland will, in all probability, be embarrassed by physical difficulties, and rendered unprofitable by a more or less successful effort to Boycott them in that country.

Lord Granville, just before the resignation of the Ministry, stepped out of his way to do a very bold and sensible thing. He appointed Sir Robert Hart, now the head of the Chinese Customs, her Majesty's Minister in Pekin. Sir Robert, who was trained in the Consular service, is by far the most influential European in China, was the adviser of the Chinese Government in making its Treaty with France, and has perfected the Custom-House system—originally devised by Mr. Lay—until the foreign credit of China is better than that of States like the Argentine Republic. The Government recently asked for a million at 6 per cent., and was offered ten millions, while the price of the scrip has touched 105. Sir 'lobed is completely trusted by the Chinese,—an invaluable recommendation in a Minister just now, when delicate questions are pending at Pekin with France, with Russia, and even with Germany, which is said to be asking for part of the island of Quelpaert, the island commanding the entrance to the Sea of Japan.

Mr. Shaw Lefevre made a very able and rather rash speech at Battersea on Wednesday. He told his audience that the Government had been on the point of resigning when they were so nearly condemned on the Vote of Censure on the Soudan expedition, and only retained power "with considerable hesitation," because they thought their adversaries would adopt a dangerous policy in foreign affairs. That bit of history might, we think, have been left in the archives; while we are quite certain of the imprudence of saying that "we must devise means for giving Irishmen a control over purely Irish questions." It is true, Mr. Lefevre adds, that this can be done without "destroying the unity of the Empire ;" but are Englishmen prepared even to diminish it P. If the Radicals do not take care, there will be a split in the Liberal Party upon this subject, which will imperil the great election. Mr. Lefevre is also too bitter in his comments on the incoming Government. They have done nothing yet, and to talk of the "dirty manceuvre " by which Sir Stafford Northeote was "hustled" out of his leadership, and of the impossibility that Lord Salisbury should "whip off his hounds and send them back to their kennels," is to encourage the style of language which Lord Randolph Churchill favours, and which

will one day make " politicians " as discredited. a class in England as they are in America.

The burst of cholera in Spain is a severe one, the number of cases reported on June 25th being 981, and the deaths 481. As usual, the respectables fly from the cities the moment they know the epidemic has burst out, and the poor who are left behind experience all the miseries of poverty. So deep is the 4zlistress, in Murcia particularly, 30,000 citizens having fled, that the King resolved to imitate the King of Italy, and visit the infected city as Humbert visited Naples. S. Canovas and his colleagues were, however, so convinced of the contagiousness of cholera that they remonstrated, and finally tendered their resignations. The King, finding himself unable to form a Ministry, gave up the idea, and Murcia is left nncheered by a Royal visit. On the same day that the resignations were handed in the populace of Madrid showed themselves as unreasonable as the Ministry. They are enraged because the Governor of Madrid acknowledges the presence of cholera in the capital— a mere question for the doctors—and on Saturday a huge mob attacked him in the Home Office. He ordered the Civil Guard to charge and disperse the people, and this was done ; but in the charge two men were killed and twenty wounded, and so irritated were the citizens, that General Pavia felt it necessary to occupy the streets with his soldiers, and hold Madrid for a few hours by arms. Order has since been restored ; but the incident shows the " electrical " condition which an epidemic always produces among the peoples of Southern Europe. They seem to think they are being poisoned.

The injurious and invidious custom of compelling Ministers who are unfortunate enough to be Commoners to seek reelection, will this time be less injurious than usual. It seems to be understood, and is, we hope, true, that there will be no contests except at Launceston, which Mr. Webster contests, not as an old Member, but as a new candidate. The country, therefore, will not lose the services of any one chosen for office, and only suffers from the needless suspension of Parliament for an additional ten days. It is high time that this absurdity was dispensed with. It absolutely stops a proper choice of administrators for Ireland, and is in Great Britain an embarrassing nuisance. We do not like Lord Randolph Churchill, but half his party throughout England have determined that he is a proper man to seat in the Cabinet ; and to make his appointment also depend upon the opinion of a trumpery borough, already merged in a great district, is absurd. We trust the Liberal Associations will leave the seat uncontested. He is the most valuable ally they could have in the Government.

The Morning Post states, with a certain air of authority, that "the close union between this country and the Cabinets of Berlin, Vienna, and Rome will constitute the basis of the foreign programme of the Conservative Cabinet." That statement, which accords with the celebrated speech about the "glad tidings of great joy," is a serious one to make in the first days of a new Government. The merit or demerit of an alliance depends upon its terms ; but the "close union" spoken of will make France think herself strangled, and throw her voluntarily or involuntarily into the arms of Russia. What the people of this country desire is a better position in Egypt, without a revival of the old quarrel with France, which forced us to keep perpetually on the watch and worried us in every quarter of the world. The statement must, however, be premature, for Lord Salisbury cannot yet know what Prince Bismarck wants, and a statement of that must be the preliminary condition to any alliance whatever.

Pope Leo. XIII., after a long delay, has finally nominated Dr. Walsh to the Catholic Archbishopric of Dublin. As Dr. Walsh holds, or did hold, Nationalist opinions, the journals of that party are delighted; but they may find their congratulations a little premature. No trusted agent of Rome can ever keep on fall terms with Revolutionists ; and Dr. Walsh will not only be such an agent, but he is also a man of learning and intelligence, who understands quite well the effect that the secession of Ireland would have nj)on the position of his Church all over the world. His personal character will, however, be of more importance than his political opinions. There never was a Church which more needed the supervision of a thoroughly good man, determined that Christian law, at all events, should be respected, than the Catholic Church in Ireland. It has many

respected prelates, but they tolerate things which, under other circumstances, they would denounce, not only as offences against Roman discipline, but as breaches of the moral law.

Dr. Martineau, on whose retirement from the Principalship of Manchester New College we have commented elsewhere, delivered a rather remarkable speech on educatiou on Wednesday night, at the Freemasons' Tavern, the general drift of which was that in acquiring a general education, it is a great mistake to select the subjects on which men are strongest,—the real object of such education being to strengthen the weaker faculties of the mind, rather than to develop and encourage the stronger. It had always been his own policy as a student, he said, to drudge hardest at the studies for which he observed that he had little taste and. little capacity, and to trust, comparatively speaking, to his leisure hours for the mastery of those studies which were to him favourite and delightful pursuits. This is an excellent general rule for the earlier years of a College education ; but in order to make it generally applicable, must not the number of separate studies and pursuits be reduced far below their present figure, and not be allowed to increase again ? If only the fields of human knowledge would not go on outstripping the powers of the human mind so fast as they do, the old method might remain possible. But as it is, are not even cultivated men destined to become more or less specialists, if they arc to have any thorough knowledge at all ?

The annual meeting of the Victoria-Street Anti-Vivisection Society, held on the 12th inst.,—a meeting of which an adequate report has only just appeared,—was remarkable for four speeches,—one by Professor J. Rendel Harris, who resigned his seat in the Johns Hopkins University rather than acquiesce in the introduction of Vivisection into that University ; one by Mr. Bernard Coleridge; one by the Bishop of Oxford ; and one by Mr. Lawson Tait, the eminent surgeon. Professor Rendal Harris— who, with excellent taste, declined to attack the University he had just quitted in order that he might pose as a martyr—criticised Mr. Busk's official report on the Vivisectional operations of last year from the optimist point of view. He showed how much the Act of 1876 had prevented. Even if Mr. Busk's report were not as exhaustive as it should bo,—and of this Mr. Coleridge gave adequate evidence,—Professor Rendel Harris showed how the Act had succeeded in limiting English physiological experiments on living animals to a few hundreds, many of them almost painless ; while in the English and American physiological laboratories the number of victims are to be counted by the thousand. Moreover, no less than 30 per cent, of the English licensees return "no experiments at all," and it is very improbable that they would make any such return had not the Act virtually taken the heart out of English vivisection. Mr. Bernard Coleridge, in an able speech, criticised Mr. Busk's report from an opposite point of view. He showed that in many respects it did not tally with the facts reported in the medical journals,—Dr. Sydney Ringer, for instance, who has made many experiments, having held no licence,—but is Mr. Coleridge sure that Dr. Ringer's experiments were made in this country ? And he showed that the same criticism applies to Dr. Gaskell, of Cambridge,—who may also, however, have gone to the Continent to make his experiments.

The Bishop of Oxford also made a very able speech, in which he pointed out that the friends of Vivisection tell you in the same breath that it is unfair to agitate against them since they do so little, and that they demand full liberty to do a great deal more. Well, it will certainly not do to withdraw the agitation against a practice which is quiescent only because it feels its fetters, and which loudly demands that these fetters

shall be removed. Mr. Lawson Tait's speech was very weighty from the point of view of a great surgeon. He showed how utterly inapplicable are experiments made on the livers of dogs to justify conclusions concerning the action of the human liver. "I am quite sure," he concluded, "that many even of the vivisectors themselves will come to the conclusion which the lessons of surgery and pathology have taught me, that vivisection is not only useless in solving riddles such as we have to deal with, but that it is absolutely misleading."