"I greatly regret that my earnest efforts have failed to procure the presence at the Conference of any representative of France, which was one of the chief parties of the Treaty of 1856, and which must ever be regarded as a principal and indispensable member of the great Commonwealth of Europe.

"At different times several questions of importance have arisen, which are not yet adjusted, and which materially affect the relation between the United States and the territories and people of British North America. One of them in particular, which concerns the Fisheries, calls for early settlement, lest the possible indiscretion of individuals should impair the neighbourly understanding which it is on all grounds so desirable to cherish and maintain. I have, therefore, engaged in amicable communications with the President of the United States. In order to determine the most convenient mode of treatment of these matters, I have suggested the appointment of a joint Commission; and I have agreed to a proposal of the President that this Commission shall be authorized at the same time, in the same manner, to resume consideration of the American claims growing out of the circumstances of the late war. arrangement will, by common consent, include all claims for compensation which have been, or may be, made by each Government, or by its citizens, upon the other.

This

"The establishment of a Prince of the House of Savoy on the throne of Spain, by the free choice of the popularly-elected representatives of the Spanish nation, will, I trust, ensure for a country which has passed with so much temperance and self-control through a prolonged and trying crisis the blessings of a stable Government.

"I am unhappily not able to state that the inquiry which was instituted by the Government of Greece into the history of the shocking murders perpetrated during the last spring at Dilessi has reached a termination answerable in all respects to my just expeetations, but I shall not desist from my endeavours to secure the complete attainment of the objects of the inquiry. Some valuable results, however, have in the meantime been obtained, for the exposure and the repression of a lawless and corrupting system, which has too long afflicted the Greek Peninsula.

"The anxiety which the massacre at Tien-tsin on the 21st of June last called forth has happily been dispelled; and while it will be my earnest endeavour to provide for the security of my subjects and their trade in those remote quarters, I count on your concurrence in the policy that I have adopted of recognizing the Chinese Government as entitled to be dealt with in its relations with this country in a conciliatory and forbearing spirit.

"The Parliamentary recess has been one of anxious interest in regard to foreign affairs. But I rejoice to acquaint you that my relations are, as heretofore, those of friendship and good understanding with the Sovereigns and States of the civilized world.

"Papers illustrative of the conduct of my Government in relation

to the several matters on which I have now summarily touched will be laid before you.

"In turning to domestic affairs, I have, first, to inform you that I have approved a marriage between my daughter Princess Louise and the Marquis of Lorne, and I have declared my consent to this union in Council.

"Gentlemen of the House of Commons,

"The revenue of the country flourishes, and the condition of trade and industry may, though with partial drawbacks, be declared satisfactory.

"The estimates for the coming year will be promptly laid before you.

"My Lords and Gentlemen,

"The lessons of military experience afforded by the present war have been numerous and important.

"The time appears appropriate for turning such lessons to account by efforts more decisive than heretofore at practical improvement. In attempting this you will not fail to bear in mind the special features in the position of this country, so favourable to the freedom and security of the people, and if the changes from a less to a more effective and elastic system of defensive military preparations shall be found to involve, at least for a time, an increase of various charges, your prudence and patriotism will not grudge the cost, as long as you are satisfied that the end is important, and the means judicious. No time will be lost in laying before you a Bill for the better regulation of the army and the auxiliary land forces of the Crown, and I hardly need commend it to your anxious and impartial consideration.

"I trust that the powerful interest at present attaching to affairs abroad, and to military questions, will not greatly abate the energy with which you have heretofore applied yourselves to the work of general improvement in our domestic legislation.

"I commend anew to your attention several measures on subjects which I desired to be brought before you during the last Session of Parliament, but which the time remaining at your disposal, after you had dealt with the principal subjects of the year, was not found sufficient to carry to a final issue.

"I refer especially to the Bills on Religious Tests in the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, on Ecclesiastical Titles, on the Disabilities of Trade Combinations, on the Courts of Justice and Appeal, on the Adjustment of Local Burdens, and on the Licensing of Houses for the Sale of Intoxicating Liquors.

"The inquiry made by a Committee of the Commons House being now complete, a measure will be placed before you on an early day for the establishment of Secret Voting.

"A proposal is anxiously expected in Scotland for the adjustment of the question of primary education. With reference to the training of the young in schools on a national scale and basis, that portion of the country has especial claims on the favourable considera

tion of Parliament; and I trust the year may not pass by without your having disposed of this question by the enactment of a just and effective law.

"The condition of Ireland with reference to agrarian crime has, in general, afforded a gratifying contrast with the state of that island in the preceding winter; but there have been painful though very partial exceptions.

"To secure the best results for the great measures of the two last Sessions which have so recently passed into operation, and which involve such direct and pressing claims upon the attention of all classes of the community, a period of calm is to be desired; and I have thought it wise to refrain from suggesting to you at the present juncture the discussion of any political question likely to become the subject of new and serious controversy in that country.

"The burdens devolving upon you as the great Council of the nation, and of this ancient and extended Empire, are, and must long continue to be, weighty. But you labour for a country whose laws and institutions have stood the test of time, and whose people, earnestly attached to them, and desiring their continuance, will unite with their Sovereign in invoking upon all your designs the favour and aid of the Most High."

The Address in answer to the Speech was moved in the House of Lords by Lord Westminster, and in the Commons by Major Hamilton, and seconded by Lord Rosebery in the Upper and Mr. Samuel Morley in the Lower House. There was little to call for notice in the debates on the Address. The Duke of Richmond reserved his opinion upon the course taken by the Government with respect to the state of affairs upon the Continent; but criticized, although without acerbity, some of the passages of the Speech, especially with reference to the Circular of Prince Gortschakoff and the absence of France from the Black Sea Conference.

Lord Granville referred with much feeling to his friendly personal relations with both France and Germany. As Foreign Secretary, however, he said that it had been his paramount duty to lay aside all personal feelings, and to maintain a fair and impartial neutrality, although, unluckily, his cordiality for both the belligerents had been deeply resented by each.

In the House of Commons, Mr. Disraeli plunged at once into a discussion on the state of foreign affairs. His speech was laboured, but picturesque. He returned again to his favourite notion, that we ought to have used the guarantee to Prussia of her Saxon provinces, given by us in the Treaty of Vienna, as a means of frightening France out of the war before it began. He insisted that we ought to have made much more of the concession obtained from Prussia as to the Hohenzollern candidature, and have told Louis Napoleon that if in the face of that concession secured by us, he did not withdraw his demand for a formal veto on the Hohenzollern candidature, he would be guilty of an "outrage" on England, and must "take the consequences,

ich consequences were not, however, to be war. He rallied the

Government for its attenuated armaments, which rendered an "armed neutrality" on our part so difficult. He complimented Mr. Childers and Mr. Cardwell on having quite justified the confidence reposed in them on their appointment to office that they would reduce the naval and military strength of England to the utmost of their ability; and Mr. Lowe on his "harum-scarum budgets." He ridiculed our action in the case of the Russian Note, and said he believed there was a secret treaty between Germany and Russia on the subject, which made our appeal to Count Bismarck as undignified as it was simple. He depicted the "cynical cordiality" with which the Count offered to assist us by proposing a Conference, in which, as a matter of course, Russia's high-handed proceeding was first of all condoned. He laughed at the Government for being represented on the Roman question by "the honourable Member for Perth" (Mr. Kinnaird); reproved the Americans for the "rough simplicity of their Republican manners" and their unmannerly conduct to England, though ironically intimating that they had no doubt "improved upon our language ;" and he finished his clever disquisition on Foreign Affairs by depicting the position of England as one of enormous peril.

Mr. Gladstone's reply was, of course, nearly limited to the points touched by Mr. Disraeli. He declared the Ministry had no knowledge of the coming storm before it broke; pointed out that the armaments had really been greatly increased in efficiency since the Conservatives went out in 1868; twitted Mr. Disraeli on the close resemblance between his conception of a "bloated armament" in 1861, and his conception of an "attenuated armament" now; confuted him as to the binding character of the guarantee of Prussia's Saxon provinces given in 1815, out of his own Government's exposition of the character of a joint guarantee as exemplified in the Luxemburg guarantee of 1868; declared, with relation to the Russian Note, that neither Lord Clarendon nor Lord Palmerston had ever believed that the neutralization of the Black Sea could be more than temporary; told the House that we should not have had a single ally among the neutral Powers if we had proposed simply to insist on this neutralization when the Russian Note appeared, as Austria was entirely opposed to that course; denied that we had made any sort of special appeal for help to Germany, having merely notified our course to Germany as to other Powers; and after declaring that he did not see any special or near peril to England, avowed his wish to make England strong, and admitted the possibility that the neutrals might be compelled to express an opinion as to the terms of peace, which his Cabinet had already advised the German Government to declare at once.

The first nights of the session were, as was to be expected, devoted chiefly to the great Continental War, the peace which had now been virtually concluded by the surrender of Paris, and the grave diplomatic transactions in which the English Government was directly concerned. These subjects, however, caused no serious parliamentary

discussion. It was undoubtedly judicious to abstain from comments which could have exercised no influence on the policy of Germany or on the fortunes of France; and the results of the Black Sea Conference, and of the Joint High Commission at Washington, were practically beyond the control of Parliament. But the surprising admission attributed to Lord Palmerston by the Premier with respect to the neutralization of the Black Sea led to a passage at arms between him and Mr. Disraeli about a fortnight later. Mr. Disraeli began by explaining that his object was not to enter into the general policy of the Treaty. He wished to discover what was the object of the Conference, which was covered with so much ambiguity and mystery, and also to vindicate the accuracy of his statement on the first night that the neutralization of the Black Sea was the vital part of the Treaty of 1856. To prove this he recounted the history of the negotiations at Vienna, and the famous "Four Points," maintaining that the Cabinet of Lord Palmerston, including Lord Clarendon and Lord Russell, continued the war for a whole year solely for the purpose of obtaining this condition, and that it was the gist of the Peace of Paris: and the policy of the British Government had never changed-at least until the end of last November. Mr. Disraeli then passed on to consider how his observations on the opening night had been met by the Prime Minister, particularly his declaration that in the view of the British Government the neutralization of the Black Sea had never been a vital object of the Treaty of 1856, and that Lord Clarendon and Lord Palmerston set no particular value on it. He pointed out that by the connexion of his sentences Mr. Gladstone had seemed to imply that when he opposed the idea of neutralization in 1856 he spoke as a Minister, whereas he was one of a minute and powerless section of distinguished men with no following in Parliament or the country, and he himself the most unpopular of all, because of the lukewarm manner in which he had provided for the war. Without presuming to defend Lord Clarendon or Lord Palmerston, he dilated on the extreme gravity of holding up two eminent statesmen as acting with insincerity at a great crisis, and laughing in their sleeves at their fellow-countrymen. As to Lord Palmerston, the story must have arisen out of some bit of banter with which he had foiled an importunate diplomatist, but it was his solemn conviction that Lord Palmerston had never wavered for a moment on this question. He strongly condemned the assembly of a Conference merely to register the humiliation of Great Britain; for at the very moment when it was declared that it met without a foregone conclusion there was evidently a foregone conclusion in Mr. Gladstone's mind fatal to the honour of the country.

Mr. Gladstone, after a scornful regret that Mr. Disraeli should have stooped to repeat some paltry accusations about falsifying a date and the like, went on to complain with some warmth that Mr. Disraeli had twisted and misrepresented both his speech and the despatches. He had never denied that the neutralization of the