Although the new year (1860) opened brightly for commercial England, the political outlook was far from cheerful. The Cabinet and the Queen were by no means in harmony on Foreign affairs, and Ministers were themselves far from being agreed as to a Reform policy. Lord Palmerston, Lord John Russell, Mr. Gladstone, and Mr. Milner Gibson were violently anti-Austrian. They were so eager to win credit for establishing a free kingdom in Northern Italy, that they were easy dupes in the hands of the French Emperor, whose design it was to achieve this end, so that whilst the credit should be his, the risk should be theirs. The Queen, on the other hand, was profoundly distrustful of French policy. She persisted in seeing in it nothing save a scheme for getting England to “pull the chestnuts out of the fire” for France. Her view was that the Italian people were now masters of the situation. Their old rulers could not be restored save by force, which Napoleon did not dare to use, and which Austria, weakened in her finances, and menaced by a Hungarian rising, was also afraid to apply. The solution of the Italian question in the opinion of the Queen might be safely left to the natural course of events, and the duty of England was done when she frankly expressed her sympathy with the Italian struggle for constitutional freedom. Napoleon, however, after promising to make Italy “free from the Alps to the Adriatic,” could hardly leave her to free herself as she was doing. His engagements to Austria on the other hand rendered it difficult for him to interfere actively. But it would have suited his convenience admirably if he were able to interfere with an ally, and on the basis of a proposal which originated with England, for then he might be able to offer a plausible excuse for not abiding by the pact of Villafranca. The game of diplomacy during this period was played, by France insinuating projects of interference to Lord Palmerston, so that they might seem to have originated with him, and by Lord Palmerston putting them into Lord John Russell’s mind, so that Lord John, who was at [Illustration: THE QUEEN OPENING GLASGOW WATERWORKS AT LOCH KATRINE.]