In the course of the discussions that were carried on as to the dowry of the Princess Louise many ill-natured allusions had been made to the Queen’s life of seclusion, and it had been broadly hinted that she was neglecting her public duties. It was unfortunate that steps were not taken by some person in authority to refute this calumny, for, if her Majesty shunned the nervous excitement of public ceremonials, it was for the purpose of husbanding her strength for the transaction of official business. Still, the people were kept in ignorance of that fact, and the result was that when the Queen proceeded in person to open Parliament on the 9th of February, 1871, she was for the first time in her life rather coldly received on the route from the Palace to Westminster. The Speech from the Throne dealt chiefly with Foreign Affairs, and it represented fairly the national feeling in favour of a policy of neutrality, tempered, however, with a strong desire to preserve the existence of France as “a principal and indispensable member of the great Commonwealth of Europe.” Two points in it were recognised as being in a special sense the expression of the Queen’s own views. These were (1), the cordial congratulation of Germany on having attained a position of “solidity and independence,” and (2), the carefully-guarded suggestion that Germany should be content with the cession of a mountain barrier beyond the Rhine on her new frontier, and not endanger the permanence of the peace, which must soon come by pressing for the cession of French fortresses, which, in German hands, must be a standing menace to France. Perhaps the most popular paragraph in the Speech was the one which indicated that the Governments of England and the United States, after much futile and bitter controversy, were at last agreed that the _Alabama_ dispute should be settled by friendly arbitration before a mixed Commission. The instinct of the masses taught them that the “latent war,” as Mr. Hamilton Fish called it, between the two kindred peoples, explained why England had suddenly lost her influence in the councils of Europe. By its reference to Home Affairs, the Royal Speech, for the time, strengthened the popularity of the Ministry. It promised a Ballot Bill, a Bill for abolishing University Tests, for readjusting Local Taxation, for restricting the grants of Licences to Publicans, for reorganising Scottish Education, and for reforming the Army. When the Debate on the Address was taken, the House of Commons was obviously in a state of high nervous tension. It was half angry with Mr. Gladstone because he had not pursued a more spirited Foreign Policy, and because, by submitting to the abolition of the Black Sea Clauses of the Treaty of Paris, and assuming an isolated attitude towards France and Germany, he had made England the mere spectator of great events, the course of which she yearned to influence, if not to control. On the other hand,