Though there will be a temporary truce, we fear the conduct of the Government, whether as represented by Mr Gladstone or by Lord Russell, will not be such as the Conservative Opposition can approve. Even apart from its acts, the position of the Ministry is so unnatural, and its reputation so tarnished and discredited, that it cannot possibly hope for a much longer respite. Every week its position is becoming more untenable. In vain do its friends endeavour to frame apologies for its defeats and pleas for its existence. In vain does the leading journal at one time claim as a merit for the Premier that he has “no principles;” in vain does it, at another, seek to intimidate electors by declaring that “unprincipled constituencies make unscrupulous Governments.” We should have thought that “unprincipled constituencies” were the very ones to support a Premier with no “principles.” However, as the subsequent election at Totnes showed, the threat was no idle word: and Government influence and the most tyrannical pressure were employed to coerce the free action of that constituency. But this course also has failed. At Totnes the Government simply escaped defeat: Liberals were returned as Liberals had been before. But at Devonport, another pocket borough of the Ministry, the Government was defeated, and for the first time for several elections a Conservative headed the poll. Ministerial tyranny had been carried too far. It succeeded in the first instance, but would not be brooked in the second. The “unscrupulous Government” has received a check in the corrupt exercise of its powers which it can never forget. It was at once a triumph for Conservatism and for the principle of freedom of election. We do not wonder that Mr Ferrand, when he took his seat in the House, should be received with hearty acclamations from the Conservatives, who crowded the Opposition benches to do him honour. The Conservative party is now stronger by eleven votes—counting twenty-two on a division—since June 1859, when the united Whigs and Radicals succeeded in overthrowing Lord Derby’s Government by a majority of only thirteen.