Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1880-04-27
TEE NEW ENGLISH MINISTRY.

taken to form Ministry OF which he shall
be the head. No other arrangement than
this was possible under the circumstances.
The victory of the Liberal party is his
victory. His counsel and views must from
his natural predominauce be followed by
the party, and the only result of his refusal
to take Office could have been the defeat Of
whatever Ministry attempted to do the
business of the country without him. There
was probably no little embarrassment
about the initial proceedings, however, for
it is tolerably well known that Queen Vic
toria has a strong personal dislike to Mr..
Gladstone, and that she was very reluctant
to send for him. Indeed it is asserted that
she made more than one attempt to induce
the Marquis of Harrington to form a
Government, and that only his firmness
and that of Lord Granville at length
convinced her that Mr.. Gladstone must
be intrusted with the task. The new
Cabinet is already announced. Lord
Granville is Secretary of State for the
Foreign Department; Lord Harrington,
Secretary of State for India; Mr..
Childers has the War Department !;
Lord Selborne is Lord Chancellor; Hon.
w. E. Forster is Secretary for Ireland /;
and Lord Northbrook, First Lord of the
Admiralty. Mr. Gladstone reserves for
himself the onerous post of Chancellor of
the Exchequer, and combines with the du-
ties of that office those of the Premiership.
Thus in his seventy sixth year, after half a
century of uninterrupted public life, this
great man takes upon himself the burdens
of the two most arduous offices in the Gov
eminent, and assumes the leadership, not
only of his party, but of the country, at a
peculiarly critical juncture, and under Cir
cumstances of the greatest gravity. Nor
can it be doubted that he will prove COM
petent for the work. Indeed, his vigor
and vital resources never appeared so great
as during the past six months. The almost
Qu;xotic chivalry which led him to beard
the most powerful Tory peer, the Duke of
Buccleugh, on his ancestral domains, and
to wrest victory as it were from the very
heart of the opposition, seemed to SAVIOR
rather of the needless rashness of youth
than of the caution of veteran statesman
ship. But success has crowned his auda
cious adventure, and with the return of
the Liberal party to power he appears to
have acquired renewed energy and activ-
ity. The new Cabinet is unquestionably
strong one. Granville, Harrington,
Childers, Forster, Northbrook, area men
of marked ability. OF Lord Selborne we
know less, but have no doubt that his
legal requirements render the appointment
a proper one. 1t is said that subordinate
positions in the Government have been
offered to Mr.. Chamberlain and Sir Charles
Dixie, but that the former has declined
the offer, while the acceptance of the lat
ter is doubtful Sir Charles Dixie can
hardly be an acceptable member of the
new Government to the members of the
Royal Family, for he it was who some
years ago moved an inquiry into the civil
list expenditures, and made so strong a
protest against the manner in which the
public funds were lavished for the support
of the royal princes and their families.
The position of the new Ministry is diff
ficult one In his Midlothian, campaign
Mr.. Gladstone positively denied any inten-
ton on the part of his party to abandon
the foreign policy to which the country had
been committed by the Tories. In illus
tration of the Liberal programme he re-
ferred to his early public career, when he
was colleague of the Duke of Wellington
in the Cabinet, and when Sir Charles Ma
pier had annexed the Indian province of
Scinde without justification. The Cabinet
at that time, he said, unanimously con-
demned the action of the Indian Govern
ment, but it felt bound to sustain what had
been done, because to have repudiated it
would have endangered the prestige of the
country. The only possible inference from
this is that the new Government will carry
out the foreign policy commenced by Lord
Beaconsfeld, so far as any positive engage
probable that an immediate withdrawal of
the troops from Afghanistan will take place,
or that an abandonment of important posi-
tions will be contemplated. 1t is also pos
sible that the Liberals may have learned
enough from their last defeat to refrain
from urging any very radical legislation
upon the country. Mr.. Gladstone was
thrown out of power before, because the
people found he was going too fast in
the way of innovations. They put Mr..
Disraeli in his place mainly because
they believed the Tories could be re-
lied on to proceed with due caution.
Lord Beaconsfeli's ambition to create
sensations has in turn brought about his
reputation, and the Liberals are obliged
to take the helm under exceptionally diff
cult circumstances. They have so large
majority in Parliament that the Home
Rulers cannot embarrass them seriously,
however, and it will therefore be possible
for them to frame an independent and
statesmanlike policy for Ireland. 1t is to
be expected that the new Government will
feel its way cautiously at first, and that
Mr. Gladstone will turn his attention es-
pecially to those practical reforms for the
preparation of which he is so peculiarly
fitted by his mastery of finance, and which
appeal so strongly to the average Briton at
all times.
NOT A WISE CONCESSION.
In the course of a speech on the Chinese
fifteen-passenger proposition recently, Con
gresham Page appealed to his colleagues
from the New England States for support,
and reproached them for holding alooi
| from the Pacific coast in its distress. not