their great triumph has been in the reduction of expenditure. With or without scruple as to claims, they have been cutting down on all sides, and will show, it, is said, diminutions and savings to the extent of several millions. In the face of such things as these, any Parliamentary pressure upon Gladstone would be impossible even if there were any party to oppose the Cabinet. But Lord Cairns resigned the Conservative leadership the other day, Lord Derby has just refused it from his party, and the Conservative host has no chief, especially as Lord Salisbury, the only next possible man in the Lords, is at daggers drawn with Disraeli. So that the Ministry is supreme, and, to make matters worse, Lowe our great enemy is master of the situation. I believe if it had not been for Lowe we might have succeeded. Bright's unfortunate illness has deprived us of support should certainly have had: Cardwell, we had full reason to believe, was with us about the temporary detention of a regiment, for he distinctly drew a comparison between the Cabinet's objection in which he concurred to a permanent retention of 1000 men, and the "very different thing" of a merely temporary aid: and we might have gone on from one to the other, making a little way, if Lowe had not been there. We hear that his colleagues mistrust him but they cannot do without him at the Exchequer: numbers of Gladstone's supporters in the House cordially hate him and make no secret of it, yet dare not move. The majority is so assurred and the luck is so strongly with them, that many a man who would gladly be revenged on Lowe is obliged to be quiet lest he should be left out in the cold. I believe Lowe played a deliberate game, as well. as