The causes of this extraordinary reaction are many, but they
are not very far to seek. The country, in the first place, is weary of the Gladstone Government, not because of anything it has done, so much as from an indefinite desire for change, which the Dissolution has enabled it to gratify to the fulL Then the Ballot has released a vast quantity of non-political impulse, and -especially of religious -impulse, which, without the security of secrecy, would have been ashamed to avow itself. Then one class has been so irritated by the Education Act as to abstain drom voting, or even to oppose, while the only "harassed" interest, that of the publicans, has displayed an unexpected and tremen- dous strength. The failures of the Government in- Foreign policy, the delayed termination of the Ashantee War, and the Alabama arbitration greatly annoyed the political classes whose feelings soon filter down. •And finally, there has been a great deal of true "reaction,"—that is, of desire to check the pace at which the Government desired to proceed, to 'rest and be thankful,' and let things alone for a time, and see how they will go under new hands. Nobody wants any measure repealed, but a great many people want to prevent- anything else being attempted, and they have voted Tory.
