was short. Since Friday last at half-past four o'clock, and since the few moments that he stood at the table, I regard it as shorter still. The issue is not in our hands. What we have had and have to do is to consider well and deeply before we take that first step in an engagement such as this; but having entered into the controversy, we must quit ourselves like men, and make every effort to remove the scandal and calamity of the relations between England and Ireland, and use our best exertions to build up with the cement of honour and concord the noble fabric of the British empire.'

Lord Stanley advocated the resolution of which he had given notice on the ground that it would leave the action of the parliament that was about to be elected by the new and enlarged constituencies perfectly free and unfettered.

On the other hand, the resolution, and the government that put it forward, were severely assailed by their former colleague, but now bitter opponent, Lord Cranbourne. He said that the leader of the opposition offered them a policy; the foreign secretary offered them a paltry excuse for delay. He maintained the principle of a state church, and would not desert that principle when applied to Ireland. He denounced the attitude assumed by ministers as being neither wise, firm, nor creditable; and as for the amendment of Lord Stanley, it was too clever by half. He said that he was prepared to meet the motion of Mr. Gladstone by a direct negative, but not to fight in the dark by supporting an amendment, which if carried would merely keep the cards in the hands of ministers to shuffle just as convenience or exigency might suggest. On the following evening Mr. Gathorne Hardy defended the Irish church in a speech powerfully effective, not only on account of its ability, but still more from the fervid and almost religious earnestness with which it was delivered. He said that the cry against it was a party cry, and that if it were abolished to-morrow, other grievances far more substantial would be put forward. Mr. Bright, in the course of the same evening, remarked that the impression left on the ministerial benches by the speech of Lord Stanley was far from comfortable, and that Mr. Hardy had endeavoured to neutralise it by a speech which at some future stage of the debate would probably be answered by the first minister of the

1868.]

crown.

MR. DISRAELI'S LETTER.

341

He said there was confusion and chaos in the House; a government in a minority, and an opposition that was no opposition at all. In approaching the consideration of the question before the House he declined to admit that the disendowment of the Irish church would inflict wrong on the half million of members of the episcopal church in Ireland. That body had ludicrously failed as an engine of conversion. (It had not made Catholics Protestants, but it had made Catholics more intensely Roman than they were in any other country of Europe. He urged that there was nothing dangerous nor terrible in the leap which the House was invited to take. If the effort were made, the hobgoblin would vanish, like protection, the balance of power, and many other things that used to frighten the tory party. In my opinion,' said Mr. Bright, "the changes of our times are the glory of our times, and I believe that our posterity will look on them as the natural and blessed growth of truth and intelligence.' On the third night Mr. Roebuck expressed a hope that the trick which had been played by the liberal party in 1859 and 1866 would not again be resorted to. Mr. Disraeli, on the last night of the debate, talked of having fathomed a conspiracy between Ritualism and Popery to overthrow the throne. In his reply Mr. Gladstone stated that if his plans should be adopted, nearly two-thirds of the property of the Irish church would remain in the hands of its ministers, and it would be placed in a position as free as any dissenting body in this country.

At the close of this, the fourth night of the debate, two divisions took place in which government was defeated by majorities of 60 and 56.

A passage in the premier's speech having called forth much remark, an explanation of it was given in the following letter, addressed to the Rev. A. Baker, one of his constituents, who had written him on the subject, and published in the Times.

"Hughenden Manor, Maundy Thursday, 1868. 'Rev. Sir, I have just received your letter, in which, as one of my constituents, you justify your right to ask for some explanation of my alleged assertion that the highchurch ritualists had been long in secret combination, and

were now in open confederacy, with Irish Romanists for
the destruction of the union between church and state. I
acknowledge your right of making this inquiry; and if I
do not notice in detail the various suggestions in your
letter, it is from no want of courtesy, but from the neces-
sity of not needlessly involving myself in literary contro-
versy. You are under a misapprehension if you suppose
that I intended to cast any slur on the high-church party..
I have the highest respect for the high-church party. I
believe there is no body of men in this country to which
we have been more indebted from the days of Queen Anne
to the days of Queen Victoria for the maintenance of the
orthodox faith, the rights of the crown, and the liberties of
the people.
In saying this I have no wish to intimate that
the obligations of the country to the other great party
in the church are not equally significant. I have never
looked upon the existence of parties in our church as a
calamity. I look upon them as a necessity, and a beneficial
necessity. They are the natural and inevitable conse-
quences of the mild and liberal principles of our ecclesias-
tical polity, and of the varying and opposite elements of
the human mind and character. When I spoke I referred
to an extreme faction in the church of very modern date,
that does not conceal its ambition to destroy the connec-
tion between church and state, and which I have reason to
believe has been for some time in secret combination, and
is now in open confederacy, with the Irish Romanists for
the purpose. The Liberation Society, with its shallow and
short-sighted fanaticism, is a mere instrument in the hands
of this confederacy, and will probably be the first victim
of the spiritual despotism the Liberation Society is now
blindly working to establish. As I hold that the dissolu-
tion of the union between church and state will cause
permanently a greater revolution in this country than
foreign conquest, I shall use my utmost energies to defeat
these fatal machinations. Believe me, rev. sir,

'Your faithful member and servant,
'B. DISRAELI.'

The Easter holidays had now arrived, and little work had been done in the course of the session. The late period at which it commenced, the illness of Lord Derby and his

1868.] END OF THE ABYSSINIAN WAR.

343

consequent absence from his place in the House of Lords, the long interval which had been asked and granted for carrying out the changes which his retirement rendered necessary, the debates on Mr. Maguire's motion and Mr. Gladstone's resolutions, had so occupied the time that should have been given to legislation, that, with the exception of the bill suspending the habeas-corpus act in Ireland, little had hitherto been effected. The bribery bill, the bankruptcy bill, the Irish reform bill-all of them measures introduced by the government-were in a state of suspended animation; and even the army and navy estimates had been delayed beyond the usual time, the latter having been postponed owing to the illness of Mr. Corry, the minister who had the charge of them, till after Easter. The indispensably-necessary business had been pushed on at intervals as well as circumstances would allow.

At the close of the Easter vacation the House of Commons proceeded with the business of the session, the government making no sign, and giving no explanation of the course they intended to adopt. The budget was brought forward as usual. The interest which Mr. Ward Hunt's financial statement excited was lessened by the necessity of making provision for the cost of the Abyssinian expedi tion-a necessity which rendered impossible any of those financial operations which under more propitious circumstances he might have attempted. The introduction of the budget was soon followed by the news of the decisive termination of the Abyssinian war. The army of the Emperor Theodore had been routed, Magdala taken, he had fallen by his own hands, the captives had been recovered, and Sir Robert Napier and his troops, having achieved all they had been sent to accomplish, were returning.

Meanwhile, after a discussion extending over eleven nights, the house divided on Mr. Gladstone's first resolution on the 30th of April, when the numbers were :

Mr. Disraeli at once said that the vote at which the committee had now arrived had altered the relations be

tween the government and the House of Commons; and therefore, as it would be necessary that they should consider their position, he proposed that the House should adjourn to the following Monday; an arrangement adopted with Mr. Gladstone's concurrence, who, however, placed on the paper a notice pledging the House to go on with the second and third resolutions on Monday before proceeding with the committee of ways and means.

On the day named the premier announced the intentions of government to a densely-crowded and eagerly-expectant House. He stated that he had waited on the Queen, and laid before her the position of the government, of the different parties in the House and the country; and he had concluded by telling her that the advice which the ministers were prepared to offer her was, that she should dissolve parliament, and take the opinion of the country on the conduct of the government and on the question at issue. At the same time he had represented to her majesty that there were important occasions on which it was desirable that the sovereign should not be embarrassed by personal claims; and that if she was of opinion that the question at issue could be more satisfactorily settled, and the interests of the country better promoted, by the immediate retirement of the present government from office, they were prepared to quit her service. He had then tendered his resignation to her majesty, who took a day to consider what had been said to her, and then announced that it was her pleasure not to accept the resignation of her ministers, and declared her readiness to dissolve parliament as soon as the state of public business would permit. Under these cirumstances he advised her majesty that although the representatives of the existing constituencies were no doubt as morally competent to decide on the question of the disestablishment of the Irish church as the representatives of the new constituencies, still it was the opinion of ministers that every effort should be made for appealing, if possible, to the new constituencies; and he stated that if the government had the cordial coöperation of parliament, he was advised by those who were experienced in this matter that it would be possible to make arrangements by which the dissolution might take place in the coming autumn. With regard to the second and third