His Liberal colleagues, perhaps, regard his present enterprise with mixed feelings. Their confidence in their former leader is qualified by doubts of his judgment, and by uncertainty as to the present range of his ambition. They cannot but perceive that he assumes the character of representative of the party, although he probably intends no disloyalty to its official or nominal chiefs. It is true that if, in appealing to the multitude, he pushes his successors aside, they have little right to complain. Almost all of them have of late addressed vehement language to public meetings, though none of them can compete with Mr. Gladstone in the power of stirring political passion. Official subordination is set aside when policy is regulated, not by Parliament, but by the voice of the general population. Senators and Consulars must stand aside in the presence of a Dictator. Although it has long been customary for statesmen to make occasional speeches to public meetings, the extent to which the practice has lately been carried is altogether unprecedented. The result is that the Constitution is gradually weakened by the substitution of numerical majorities for the representatives of the people in Parliament. The approach of a General Election furnishes no sufficient justification for an innovation which accelerates the prevalence of democracy, and aggravates its evil tendencies. Mr. Gladstone himself perhaps understands and approves the organic change which promotes the supremacy of popular eloquence in the State. It is his habit to depreciate the honesty and judgment of the educated classes. BEACONSFIELD KEEPS COOL. =Source.=--Holland's _Life of the Duke of Devonshire_, i. 258. (Longmans and Co.) _Lord Beaconsfield to Mr. Gathorne Hardy._ It certainly is a relief that the drenching rhetoric has at length ceased--but I have never read a word of it. "Satis eloquentiæ sapientiæ parum." THE MAIWAND DISASTER (1880). =Source.=--_Parliamentary Publications_, "Afghanistan," C 2,736 of 1880, p. 3. _Telegram from Viceroy, June 27, 1880, to Secretary of State._ Telegram from Thomson at Teheran says: Ayub Khan marching against Candahar with large force. I think we should leave Shere Ali to defend himself beyond the Helmund, but it seems to me, after communicating with Stewart, that it would be inconsistent with security of our military position at Candahar to allow hostile forces to cross that river. I propose, therefore, to instruct Primrose, if Ayub reaches Furrah, to advance towards Girishk with sufficient force to prevent passage of Helmund.... _Telegram dated August 2, 1880, from Colonel St. John, Candahar, to Foreign, Simla (p. 33)._