A few weeks later, in a crowded assembly representative not only of British but of foreign interest, as the Strangers’ and the Speaker’s Galleries were both full, Beadon proposed a vote of censure on the Government, which was seconded by Farquharson in a speech that turned the scale. The motion was carried by an overwhelming majority. The inevitable General Election followed, and event followed event in quick succession. Conservative agencies mustered all their forces, and Farquharson was bidden to speak in every direction. The pendulum swung round, and the Conservatives returned to power with a gain of twelve seats on the last amazing Liberal majority of three and a half years before. *CHAPTER II* "If glory does not intoxicate you continually, do not stand beneath her banners."—THE PRINCE DE LIGNE. "Historians and the Press make the mistake," said Hare, "of treating the nation as a party. She is an individual, subject to fluctuations of health and reason, capable, like a true woman, of reaching any height or any depth. She is baffling, inconsistent, base, and noble within a breath. Wise men predict her rise or fall according to her temperament and environment. Look at Spain. Melancholy to the roots of her being, mysterious, ardent—she has those qualities which attain to the utmost height of glory for a while, then decline. The Escorial shows one side of the nation; much the same brooding silence and enmity as were the hall-marks of the Inquisition. I doubt if any man or woman can fully understand what made inquisitors act as they did until they have been to Spain. There is no power so cruel as that of a faith which literally obeys the scriptural injunction of destroying limb by limb the body which turns to evil and forsakes good. In Grenada you have another side, everything steeped in colour and mystery. Moorish, of course—how few of us realize, by the bye, that Spain was held by the Moors for an even longer period than she has been under the sway of the Spaniards. But Spain needs balance. Till she gets it she will never be a great nation. Take Italy, again. Had she cultivated her pagan characteristics, as opposed to the qualities which priests would tell you make for ultimate happiness, she would have done better. As it is, she is rebellious, chaotic, a mass of intrigue and suspicion, unreliable and weak. Germany—ah! there’s a power to be reckoned with, scarcely, in my mind, to fear. Her death-blow is ambition. She is a one-man country, and one man is liable to err. France is a house divided against itself; a nation of charming women and irreligious men. In her dissensions our security lies. Russia"—he shrugged his shoulders—"with her internal troubles and her exchequer at so low an ebb, we need not fear her. In the future aspect of the Alliance, I fancy China and Japan united may be our bitter enemies. Theirs is a waiting game. At Berlin