It is a not less remarkable feature of the times that in politics also all England now is nearly of one mind. We say “nearly,” for there is one class which is an exception, and the existence of which has an important influence upon the relative composition of the two great parties in the State. But, unquestionably, the great bulk of the nation is now of one mind in regard to political questions. In a country like England this is a truly remarkable condition of affairs, and suggestive of but one inference. Homogeneous nations under a centralised form of government—as in France—may readily conceive a universal passion for change, the nation acting together in its wisdom or madness like one man. But the case is very different in this country. The United Kingdom is an aggregate of the most opposite forces—it is full of conflicting interests, each intrenched in some vigorous organisation, whether of aristocracy, church, commerce, corporations, leagues, or companies. In such circumstances, a universal agreement of opinion in favour of altering a single part of our constitution, either in Church or State, would be an event little short of a miracle. Unanimity of political feeling in England, therefore, cannot possibly signify anything else than political contentment—the wish to rest and enjoy, satisfaction with the form and machinery of the Constitution, and a desire only to see the machinery of Government ably and honestly worked. And what else is this than Conservatism? It is Conservatism adopted by the whole nation. It is a mistake to attribute this universal Conservatism to the breakdown of democratic institutions in America. The “Conservative reaction,” to adopt the common but exceptionable phrase, had unmistakably manifested itself before a single shot had been fired in America—before the bloodless bombardment of Fort Sumter announced the approach of that deplorable conflict which has served to expose democracy in its worst and most contemptible form, and to reveal, in the bosom of republican America, a mass of corruption, imbecility, meanness, and malignity which, taken together, have never been equalled in the whole world. But if a Conservative feeling had been steadily growing up in England before the “bursting of the American bubble,” it is equally true that that great collapse of democracy has done much to give to that feeling its present universality. Abstract reasoning cannot affect mankind with the same force as actual experiment and practical demonstration. Every sensible man in this country now acknowledges—what nearly all sensible men for some years past felt, but lacked the courage to say—that we have already gone as far towards democracy as it is safe to go, and that another step like that proposed by Lord Russell would have carried us irretrievably over the precipice. This is the great moral benefit which we have derived from the events in America. The vast superiority of our