The new Prime Minister met his followers in Downing Street on the 5th of March, and promised them that his policy would be truly Conservative. At half-past five he rose in the House of Commons, amidst general cheering, to explain his position, which he did with some superfluous humility. In Foreign Affairs his policy, he said, would be Lord Stanley’s--one of peace without isolation--and in Home Affairs it would be “a Liberal one--a truly Liberal one.” The Reform Bills for Ireland would proceed, an Education Bill was promised, and on the following Tuesday Lord Mayo would explain the views of the Cabinet as to Ireland--views which doubtless would [Illustration: ST. JAMES’S PALACE, LONDON.] satisfy “enlightened and temperate men” of all Parties. Some of the Adullamites thought that a mistake had been made in not attempting to form a Coalition, and Mr. E. P. Bouverie gave voice to their querulous discontent. Before the sitting was over, Mr. Hardy succeeded in carrying a measure in which the Queen was interested--the Bill for abolishing the demoralising spectacle of public executions. But it was quite clear that Mr. Gladstone and Lord Russell would now give the new Cabinet no mercy. Every one therefore felt that the crisis in its fate would be determined when Lord Mayo expounded its Irish policy. The Irish Church Question divided Reformers least, and it was known that to this question Lord Mayo would address himself. There were now three plans before the country for getting rid of the anomaly of supporting in Ireland out of national funds, the Church of a small, a rich, and an anti-national sect. Lords Hardwicke and Ellenborough had proposed to “level up” the Roman Catholics to an equal footing with the Protestants by raising £3,000,000 a year for their endowment. Lord Russell proposed to “level down” the Protestants to the same plane of equality as the Catholics, by diverting six-eighths of the Protestant endowments to Catholic purposes. Mr. Bright proposed to secularise all the Protestant endowments and devote them to purely national purposes, reserving £3,000,000 to break the fall of the Protestant churches, and provide each Roman Catholic parish with a small piece of glebe land. On Tuesday, the 10th of March, Mr. Maguire opened the debate on the affairs of Ireland, and Lord Mayo, with verbose embarrassment, gave an exposition of Irish policy, which sealed the fate of the Government. He promised (1) a small Bill for registering tenants’ improvements and encouraging leasehold tenures, which nobody treated seriously; (2) Commissions of inquiry into the Land Question and into the Irish railway system, with a hint at granting Imperial subsidies to Irish railways; (3) the endowment of a separate Catholic University; (4) an inquiry into the Irish Church, with a suggestion that the right policy was to “level up” the Catholics to the same condition of endowment as the Protestants, and to increase the