It would be out of place to enter into any speculation as to what Hicks-Beach's own views may have been with regard to the whole policy of the war. It is now well known that Queen Victoria was entirely opposed to that policy, although she did not feel that her position as a constitutional sovereign gave her authority to overrule it by a decision of her own. There is very good reason to believe that peace was brought about at last by the resolute exercise of King Edward's influence. It is at least not unlikely that a man of Hicks-Beach's intellect and temperament may have been opposed at first to the policy which brought on the war, but may have, nevertheless, believed that his most patriotic course would be to remain in the Government and do the best he could for the public benefit. He soon found himself compelled to perform as disagreeable a task as an enlightened financial statesman could have to undertake--the task of extracting from the already overburdened taxpayers the means of carrying on a war of conquest with which he had little sympathy. It was perfectly evident that the needed revenue could not be extracted from the country without some violation of those financial principles to which Hicks-Beach had long been attached. There was no time for much meditation--the money had to be found somehow--and a great part of it could only be found by the imposition of a duty on foreign imports. We now know from public statements made by Sir Michael Hicks-Beach himself that while the war was going on he became impressed with the conviction that the whole administration of the military department was grossly mismanaged, and that the money of the nation was thrown away when the War Office came to spend it. The conviction thus forced upon him could not have tended to make the task of providing means for such further expenditure any the more agreeable to him. We may assume that he saw no other course before him than to make the best of a bad job and try to find in the least objectionable way the amount of money necessary to carry on the business of the State. It was evident to him that the principles of free trade must be put aside for the present, and he found himself driven to the odious necessity of imposing a duty on the importation of foreign corn, a duty which in fact amounted to a tax on bread. Hicks-Beach well knew that no tax could be more odious to the poorer classes of the British Islands; but we may presume that in his emergency he could see no other way of raising the money, and he accepted the situation with a dogged resolve which made no pretense at any concealment of his personal dislike for the task. His manner of delivering the speech in which he set forth his scheme of finance was that of a man who has to discharge an odious duty, or what he finds himself by the force of circumstances compelled to regard as a duty, but will utter no word which might seem to make out that he has any excuse other than that of hateful necessity.