Parliament was opened on the 8th of February by the Queen in person, with great pomp and ceremony; and the Royal Speech promised several useful measures dealing with the Court of Appeal, Merchant Shipping, and Prisons. But the one that excited most public interest was the Bill to confer on the Sovereign a new title derived from India, in gracious acknowledgment of the enthusiastic reception given to the Prince of Wales by the natives of that Empire. As for the Slave Circular, the questions raised by it were to be referred to a Royal Commission. The Foreign Policy of the Government was expressed by Mr. Disraeli, in terms that appealed sympathetically to national feeling. It was based on the idea that England was responsible for the good use of her influence in the councils of Europe, and it united the Tory Party, and caused the country to condone all Ministerial blunders. The debate on the Eastern Question showed that Mr. Gladstone and other eminent Liberals approved of Lord Derby’s adherence to the Andrassy Note. But it clearly indicated that the Opposition would attack the Government if it adopted the old Crimean policy of supporting Turkey whenever she rejected the demands of Europe. The purchase of the Suez Canal Shares provoked more controversy. It turned out that they had been mortgaged by the Khedive, and could not yield dividends for nineteen years, a fact unknown to Mr. Disraeli when he bought them. Sir Stafford Northcote, therefore, proposed to borrow £4,000,000, and exact from the Khedive 5 per cent. a year on that sum to cover the loss of the mortgaged dividends. Mr. Gladstone attacked the financial details of the transaction,[87] and though his criticism was logical it failed to influence the country. Had the purchase of the Shares been solely a commercial speculation, the unbusiness-like manner in which it had been effected would have been of some importance. But it was also a stroke of high policy, and it appealed to the imperial instincts of the nation which, as Mr. Disraeli said, was getting “sea-sick of the silver streak.”[88] Most of Mr. Gladstone’s prophecies have been falsified by events. Oddly enough the only valid objections to the purchase of the Canal Shares were not pressed by him. They were (1), That a Canal which could be easily blocked and wrecked by an enemy’s ship, was not a safe route to India; and (2), That the fault of Mr. Disraeli’s policy was in his failure to carry it out to its logical conclusion--the establishment of a British Protectorate over Egypt, which would have rendered the final fate of Turkey, a matter of indifference to Englishmen. Parliament ratified the policy of the Government with enthusiasm. The appointment of the Royal Commission to examine all the difficulties raised by the Slave Circular saved Ministers from defeat at the end of the Debate on the issue of that stupid State Paper. The Government was also fortunate in its domestic legislation. The Merchant