Lord Salisbury created a scene by comparing Lord Derby’s revelations to those of Titus Oates, and he gave them a flat denial. But Lord Derby had spoken from a Memorandum which he had made of the decision to which he referred at the time it was arrived at. As Lord Salisbury’s reputation for veracity had been sadly shaken by his statements about his Secret Agreement with Russia, the country paid little heed to his disclaimers, and Lord Derby’s version of the facts has ever since been taken as correct. Triumphant majorities endorsed the policy which had been adopted in the Congress, and at the end of the year Ministers went about predicting for the country halcyon days of peace. Domestic affairs gave them little trouble. Irish obstruction was bought off by the Irish Intermediate Education Bill, which appropriated £1,000,000 to encourage secondary schools in Ireland, by prizes, exhibitions, and capitation grants. An attempt was made to pass a Bill, which, under the pretext of excluding diseased cattle from English ports, might have been so applied as to shut out foreign competition in the cattle trade. But when it was discovered that the effect of the measure would be to raise meat to eighteen-pence and two shillings a pound, the Tory borough members threatened to revolt, and after a long and obstructive struggle in Committee concessions were extorted from the Government which satisfied the Opposition. The Government and the Opposition agreed to pass a Bill consolidating forty-five Factory and Workshop Acts--a most useful measure which removed many legal ambiguities. But no other Bills of importance were carried, and no debates of much consequence raised, save on foreign questions.