the House showed plainly that it was thankful that the country had been kept out of the embarrassments and entanglements of war. Indeed it was clear that, if Mr. Gladstone had pursued a more spirited policy at the risk of enforcing it by arms, he would have been hurled from power by the votes of the very men who now sneered at his policy because it was spiritless. Mr. Disraeli’s tone was less patriotic than usual. He was careful to say nothing that would commit him and his party to any other policy than that of neutrality; but he was equally careful to encourage a belief that this policy had been adopted, not from prudence, but from cowardice. To use one of his own phrases, he “threatened Russia with a clouded cane;” though, as he knew well, the Black Sea dispute had by that time ended. He endangered the prospects of peaceful arbitration on the _Alabama_ Claims, by his bitter allusions to the United States. He poured ridicule on the military feebleness of the country at a crisis when a patriotic statesman would have naturally preferred to remain silent on such a theme. But the effect of his attack was somewhat diminished by his attempt to show that military impotence was naturally associated with Liberal Governments. Everybody knew that all governments, Liberal or Tory, were equally responsible for the bad state of the army, and that they had all equally resisted the popular demand for reform, till it grew so loud that Mr. Cardwell was forced to yield to it. The great measure of the Session was of course the Army Bill, which was introduced by Mr. Cardwell, on the 16th of February. It abolished the system by which rich men obtained by purchase commissions and promotion in the army, and provided £8,000,000 to buy all commissions, as they fell in, at their regulation and over-regulation value.[3] In future, commissions were to be awarded either to those who won them by open competition, or who had served as subalterns in the Militia, or to deserving non-commissioned officers. Mr. Cardwell also proposed to deprive Lords-Lieutenant of Counties of the power of granting commissions in the militia. He laid down the lines of a great scheme of army reorganisation which bound the auxiliary forces closer to the regular army, gave the country 300,000 trained men, divided locally into nine _corps d’armée_, for home defence, kept in hand a force of 100,000 men always available for service abroad, and raised the strength of the artillery from 180 to 336 guns. This, however, he did at the cost of £15,000,000 a year--a somewhat extravagant sum, seeing that 170,000 of the army of defence consisted of unpaid volunteers. The debate that followed was a rambling one. The Tory Party defended the Purchase system because good officers had come to the front by its means. Even a Radical like Mr. Charles Buxton was not ashamed to argue that promotion by selection on account of fitness, would sour the officers who were passed over with discontent. Lord Elcho, though