At the elections of 1874, there was no distinct foreign policy before the public, for though there were many on the Conservative side who sympathized with France in her adversity, and saw clearly that Germany's mutilation of her territory meant trouble in time to come, not a voice was raised in deprecation of our neutrality. But, for the matter of that, it may be just as correctly said that there was no matured domestic question before the country, for it will not be supposed that there was a single Tory any more than a Liberal who wished the Income Tax to be retained on his shoulders. It was hardly for proposing to do away with that impost that everybody voted so unanimously against Mr. Gladstone; they only did so at the polling-booths in spite of his proposing it, which somehow seems rather mysterious. If his opponents were not proposing to recall any of the recent legislation, and if there was no special question of foreign affairs pending, and if nobody had any desire not to be lightened of taxation, how was it, pray, that Mr. Gladstone was so ignominiously hurled from power? In reality, there is not the slightest difficulty about it--Mr. Gladstone was decisively rejected by his countrymen, not on any question of policy, either home or foreign, but because of the _personal impression_ he had slowly but surely imprinted on their minds. The real issue before the country was whether it would have any more of Mr. Gladstone, and it said No. It is a common artifice on the part of his apologisers to insinuate that he had wearied the nation by offering it too many things for its good. But neither individuals nor communities are much in the habit of refusing gifts; it is the one thing, and nearly the only thing, in this world for which there is an excellent reason whenever so strange a proceeding happens. There is another way of representing the matter, one much less complimentary but far more true--the country was sick of Mr. Gladstone. Even the sight of Mr. Lowe standing at his side with four millions of surplus in his hands was not enough to tempt them. The promise to abolish the Income Tax was the most tremendous bribe ever offered to the constituencies, but, to their credit, it did not corrupt them. They would not accept Mr. Gladstone any longer at any price whatever. The believers in democracy, and Mr. Gladstone in particular, according to some of his very latest reasonings, ought to have accepted this universal disgust as being a popular inspiration. However, they have done nothing of the kind, but avow that it was a public delusion, which they at first hinted would be temporary; but if the public is liable to delusions, and to fits of them which continue for seven or eight years at a stretch, for that is now the duration of this one, what becomes of these very radical gentlemen's democracy? For it is not really open to them to plead, though they will go on doing it, that the