*TIME.** JULY, 1885. THE OUTLOOK FOR THE NEW BY H. D. TRAILL. Ir is appropriate enough to the political downfall of the most accomplished casuist who has ever ruled a State, that the circumstances of his overthrow should have given rise to as pretty a controversy on a point of parliamentary ethics, as anybody curious in such matters could desire. The question, however, which is involved in it we may leave to be dealt with by the historian of the future. How far an embarrassed Ministry is justified in disregarding the probability, if not insuring the certainty, of a defeat, which will shift their embarrassments to the shoulders of opponents, whose persistent (too) political attitude presupposes their willingness, if not their desire, to accept the burden, would make an excellent subject for a debating club. But for the practical politician the situation created by this accident-or manoeuvre-is far too interesting to allow him either mood or leisure to speculate on the agencies by which it was brought about. It is enough for him that, whether ministers contributed to their own downfall or not, they could not have fallen at a moment more opportune for themselves; and that, whether their opponents wished, hoped, or expected to drive them from power by the fatal vote of June 8th or not, the reversion of office could hardly have come to the Conservative party at a more forbidding conjuncture of affairs abroad, or under more terribly embarrassing conditions at home. Yet we cannot for an instant doubt that Lord Salisbury was right in responding at once to Her Majesty's invitation to him to form a Government. Numerous and formidable as are the considerations adverse to such a course, they were all outweighed by the single argument from public duty, in the form in which it presented itself in the present case. We are not at all prepared VOL. XIII. B |