heavily overtaxed fellow citizens-the said fortunes being the only visible fruit of the policy of colonial extension. Add to all this that the fever is playing havoc with the French troops in Madagascarinvalids are returning to France by the shiploadand there is already a cry for reinforcements which will have to be attended to; otherwise the campaign will terminate in a disaster which will wreck the Ministry.

Who Will

Altogether the situation is full of elements Keep the of danger which may at any moment Peace Now? draw to a head with results disastrous to a general peace. It is one of the aggravations of the situation that the foreign policy of AustriaHungary is no longer in the experienced hands of Count Kalnoky, whose devotion to peace and confidence in the pacific policy of Great Britain have been counted upon for many years as one of the constant facts which told for continued tranquillity. Under these circumstances it is not surprising that there are many Englishmen whose one fear about the coming elections is that they may result in the return of a majority too small to render a firm and dignified foreign policy possible. Now that the Tzar has gone, it is the Prime Minister of England more than any one else who can hold the balance even and keep the peace of the world; and a Prime Minister who has no considerable majority behind him in the House of Commons is not in a position to maintain more than his own equilibrium.

The Fall of

We have dealt elsewhere with the one Lord great event which has overshadowed Rosebery. everything in home politics-namely, the substitution of a Salisbury Cabinet for a Rosebery Administration. The end long perceived came at last in a very unexpected fashion. The Liberal majority had been gradually dwindling. One bye'election after another had eaten into their narrow 'margin. Each of the groups which make up the composite majority had developed mutinous elements in the shape of those cut-throats of faction who were prepared to wreck their party if their demands were not immediately satisfied. Ministers lost even the will to live, and more than one of the Cabinet 'regarded the final coup de grace with profound gratitude. "Do not condole with me," said one of the most distinguished of their number; "what I have been praying for for months has at last come to pass." I do not know of any case when an outgoing Ministry was so glad to die as that which gave up the seals of office on June 29th.

¡ Its Last Days.

At the beginning of last month it seemed probable that Ministers would be defeated on the Welsh Bill in Committee or on the second reading of the Local Veto Bill. It was well known that they had not a majority for Local Option. The Liberal brewers could not be induced to vote for a Bill which Sir William Harcourt supported with a zeal due possibly to the fact that in his old age he has found the one and only enthusiast of a lifetime. It was understood, however, that the difficulty about Local Option would be solved by shelving it to an autumn session, which would have to deal with one man one vote, clipping the claws of the House of Lords, and the introduction of prohibition in patches. The Welsh Church Bill remained. Mr. Lloyd George and Mr. Thomas were showing their teeth, on one division the Government majority went down to seven, and it was quite on the cards that at any moment this slender majority might disappear altogether. The action of the Liberal Whips in cancelling Mr. Gladstone's pair, in order that he might have a free hand to deal with the Welsh Bill, increased the uneasy feeling in the Liberal ranks, that the ground had shifted under their feet, and it was with more incredulity than with satisfaction that they heard that Mr. Asquith at the last moment had succeeded in squaring the recalcitrant Welsh members, and that the Bill was safe. The mutinous MacGregor, who had shaken the dust off his feet in wrath against the Government because their assurances about the crofters, were not good enough for him, brought upon the Government an ugly defeat at Inverness, the only subsidiary advantage of which was the quietus which it administered to Mr. Donald Macrae. Their Irish Bill, which had been well received by those whom it concerned, appeared to be the only piece of legislation which would be got through this Session. Unfortunately, even in Ireland, Ministers contrived inadvertently to provoke an effervescent outbreak of dissatisfaction which contributed indirectly to their final overthrow.

Prime Minister. Such, however, was not the fact. The proposition seems to have originated in the Office of Works. Members of the general public discover from time to time that Cromwell has no statue,

THE CROMWELL STATUE AT MANCHESTER.

and write to the papers or to Ministers suggesting that the omission should be repaired. One of these innumerable communications seems to have put the Office of Works in motion, and the First Commissioner consulted the Chancellor of the Exchequer on the subject. They decided that it would be a good thing to erect a statue to Cromwell, and thereupon consulted their colleagues as to where the statue should stand. Some said one thing and some another, but only two raised the prior question whether there should be a statue at all. No one had any objection to do honour to the greatest of English rulers, but a small minority demurred to bringing forward a proposal which was certain to irritate the Irish beyond bounds. Their warnings were unheeded and the proposal went forward.

The Revolt. When the first vote for £500 was taken of the for the commencement of a statue which Irish. Mr. Thornycroft had agreed to erect for £3,000, Ministers had not long to wait in order to discover the blunder into which they had stumbled. Of course if Mr. Balfour had been capable of rising superior to the temptation which assailed him, all might have been well. Unfortunately for almost the first time in his career Mr. Balfour played the unworthy part of a Randolph Churchill. Instead of rising to the occasion with a magnanimity which would have done him honour, he eagerly seized the chance of discrediting the Government by stooping to a course of policy which was unworthy of his reputation. No doubt ecclesiastical rancour against the great Protector still exists in many a country parsonage, but Mr. Balfour seldom plays to his gallery so meanly as he did when he attacked the memory of Cromwell for the sake of embarrassing Sir William Harcourt. On the 250th anniversary of the battle of Naseby the House of Commons voted the money for the statue by a majority of fifteen. Ministers were saved from defeat solely by the votes of a few Liberal Unionists and Ulster Tories. The question came up again on report. Another division was challenged, and the Whips reported adversely as to the chances of success. So, making a virtue of necessity, Ministers put up Mr. Morley to announce the abandonment of the proposal. The Conservatives were of course in high glee and the Irish for the moment were appeased, but the wrath of many Liberals and Nonconformists knew no bounds. The sum of £3,000 necessary for erecting the statue was at once contributed in the House of Commons, but the Ministers had escaped by a mischief was done. humiliating retreat from a position into which they had saved their lives by the skin of their teeth, the should never have blundered. But although they incident created an uneasy feeling that the end was near.

The

How near the end was, however, no one Resignation anticipated. On Friday night, June 21st, of the Duke. the House assembled with no suspicion that the end was at hand. Ministers were in good spirits, for Mr. Campbell-Bannerman was able to announce the successful completion of a long and delicate negotiation which he had been conducting, in order to clear the ground for the reorganisation of the army. The Duke of Cambridge, who for some time past has been little more than a dignified figure-head of the army, had consented

to resign the office of Commander-in-Chief, and henceforth the command of the army would be vested in an officer appointed for a term of five years. Everybody congratulated everybody else on the achievement of an object which had long been regarded as inevitable, and Sir William Harcourt, it is stated, for the first time that Session went off to the Terrace to enjoy a quiet smoke with his faithful gossips, Mr. Labouchere and Sir Wilfrid Lawson. He is said to have remarked, as he took his seat on the Terrace : "There is at least one night on which there is no danger of a Ministerial crisis." Yet it was on that night of all others that the Ministry fell.

Mr. CampbellBannerman, the Secretary of War, by £100, in order to bring before the House what he declared was the neglect of the War Office to keep in stock an adequate supply of cordite cartridges for sinall arms.. The Ministerial Whips were caught napping.

THE HON. W. ST. JOHN BRODRICK, M.P. In vain Mr. Camp

(From a photograph by Russell.),

bell-Bannerman assured the House that not only was he satisfied with the supply of cartridges in reserve and at command, but he could give the most positive assurances to the same effect by Sir Redvers Buller, the Chief-of-Staff, who for some time past has virtually been the Commander-in-Chief of the British Army. These assurances, however, went for nothing with the Opposition, who snatched a division at the dinnerhour, and to their own infinite surprise put the Government in a minority of seven. Half-a-dozen Ministers were absent and very few members voted.. It is interesting to note that the only Liberal who voted with the majority was Sir Charles Dilke, so that the Liberals of the Forest of Dean who sacrificed morality to party at the last election have had their reward.

HARD HIT!

With an apology to Mr. W. Q. Orchardson, R.A. From the Westminster Gazette..

The defeat, unexpected as it was, was Lord Salisbury's not unwelcome.. A Cabinet Council was Accession. held on Saturday, and in the evening Lord Rosebery tendered the resignation of his Cabinet. The Queen accepted it, and sent for Lord Salisbury to undertake the formation of a Ministry. Mr. Balfour complained somewhat bitterly that Lord Rosebery had resigned instead of dissolving, but as the House had censured the Secretary of State for War for not providing adequately for the national defence, it is difficult to see what other course it was possible for them to have taken. After a little delay a new Cabinet was formed, and on the following Saturday, June 29th, Lord Rosebery and his colleagues handed their seals of office to Her Majesty. Later in the day

she entrusted them to Lord Salisbury, who by that time had completed his Cabinet and was in a position to undertake the administration of affairs. The policy of the incoming Administration is one of dissolution. By the middle of this month the elections will be in full swing.

UNION IS NOT ALWAYS STRENGTH.

From the Westminster Gazette.

Captain Middleton and Mr. Hudson are now the masters of the situation until August, when the new House of Commons will assemble to vote the necessary supplies. I discuss elsewhere both the record of the late Ministers and the personnel of the new Cabinet; suffice it here to say that the expectation is universal that Lord Salisbury will come back from the country with a sufficient majority to carry on until such time as circumstances precipitate a breach between him and Mr. Chamberlain. That gentleman, who is now Secretary for the Colonies, is the most conspicuous member of the Cabinet after the Prime Minister. The death of Walter

Death of the Q. Gresham, Secretary

American [Secretary of of State for the United

State. States, has been the most prominent event of the past month, so far as American public affairs are concerned. Mr. Gresham had for more than thirty years been a man of influence

and distinction, having served brilliantly through the Civil War, from which he came out a BrigadierGeneral. Returning to his Indiana home, he rose rapidly as a lawyer and a Republican politician. In 1892 the Republican nomination would have filled the cup of his life-long ambition; but it did not come to him, and he was asked to accept a nomination from the Populists, whose convention was held at Omaha. His hesitancy before declining to become the Populistic standard-bearer-a circumstance which kept the Populists anxiously waiting for some time-showed how lightly the party tie held a man who had all his life been considered one of the foremost of Republican leaders. Later on, in that same campaign, it was announced that Judge Gresham had concluded to vote for the Democratic candidates, and Mr. Cleveland gave the country a surprise by selecting the " man without a party" as his Secretary of State. His career as Secretary of State began with the unfortunate blunders of the Administration's Hawaiian policy; and for more than two years the American people, regardless of party, have evinced a certain uneasiness and anxiety touching the wisdom of the Administration's treatment of foreign questions. It is, however, quite too early to pass any final judgment upon the conduct of the State Department under Mr. Gresham's headship. He has been succeeded by Mr. Olney, the legal adviser of the Cabinet, a lawyer of high standing, especially among "solid" men.

CAPTAIN R. WE MIDDLETON, The Conservative Agent. -