need Parliamentary sanction before they could be considered binding on the British Government. The Conference broke up owing to the impossibility of reconciling English and French interests, and Mr. Gladstone on the 2nd of August told the House of Commons that England had regained entire freedom of action. With this freedom the Government acquired fresh energy. They sent Lord Northbrook to Egypt to report upon its condition, and obtained from Parliament a Vote of Credit of £300,000 with which to send succour to Gordon if he required it. At this time, though Khartoum was isolated and surrounded by the Mahdi’s troops, Lord Hartington refused to admit that Egypt was in danger from an Arab invasion, or to give any definite promise to send Gordon aid. The Egyptian Question sadly exhausted the energies of the House of Commons. Mr. Arthur Peel had been chosen as Speaker on the 26th of February, in succession to Sir Henry Brand, who was elevated to the Peerage as Viscount Hampden. Sir Stafford Northcote again succeeded in preventing Mr. Bradlaugh from taking his seat, and when Mr. Bradlaugh resigned it, and was again re-elected for Northampton, the resolution excluding him from the House was once more revived on the 21st of February. The Budget was not presented till the last week of April, and Mr. Childers [Illustration: KHARTOUM.] then confessed that for the coming year he could not expect a surplus of more than £260,000,[191] which admitted only of a small reduction in the Carriage Duties. The unexpected costliness of the Parcel Post caused Mr. Childers to abandon in the meantime the scheme for introducing sixpenny telegrams; but he made proposals for the reduction of the National Debt and the withdrawal of light gold coin from circulation, that led to some controversy. Mr. Childers’ method of dealing with the Debt was to give holders of Three per Cent. Stock the option of taking Two and Three-quarters per Cent. or Two and a Half per Cent. Stock at the rate of £102 and £108 respectively for every £100 of Stock so exchanged. Mr. Childers argued that he would thus reduce the annual burden of the charge for the Debt (after providing for a Sinking Fund to cover the nominal increase in the capital cf the converted Stock) by £1,310,000. His Coinage Bill was lost because the Tories roused popular prejudice against it. Mr. Childers proposed to demonetise the half-sovereign by putting in it a certain amount of alloy and giving it a mere token-value. The charge that he was “debasing the currency” wrecked his project. A Bill strengthening the hands of the Privy Council in excluding diseased cattle was passed. But the great measure of the Session was the Reform Bill, which was introduced on the 28th of February. By it Mr. Gladstone extended household franchise to the counties, and a vigorous effort was made to compel him to introduce along with the Franchise Bill, a Bill for the Redistribution of Seats. The Second Reading of the