Lord Beaconsfield and his party are still holding on. All the over-praised Disraelian craft has dwindled somehow to this merely muscular operation. An attempt is, indeed, made to disguise the attitude by keeping strict silence, and arranging the facial expression of the Cabinet, if not of the Party, in a way not agreeing with the strain; but the country is fast finding out that the real posture of the Conservatives at this moment is that of clutching at office, and nothing more. However, no amount of not talking about the elections will put them off finally. In his most efficient days Lord Beaconsfield was hardly clever enough to operate upon the almanack, and a certain terrible date is approaching upon him with increasing swiftness. It will be rather humiliating at last for a Premier to be brought up by the day of the month, and to be reminded by the great officials of Parliament what year of Our Lord it is. But these latter personages are partly paid for watching the efflux of time, and no doubt they will do their duty. It may be unpleasant for them to have to tell Lord Beaconsfield that dates make it impossible for him to go on any longer, but they must get what consolation they can from the remembrance that it is the first time they ever had to say this to a Minister. Several Parliaments in our history have been nicknamed rather uglily, but it is likely that the Beaconsfield House of Commons will be known under a description more humiliating than any, because so inescapeably accurate. It will literally be the run-to-the-last-dregs Parliament, and when, on there not being another moment left, the dissolution has necessarily to be ordered, the not-any-longer-to-be-put-off elections will take place.