neutrality, at a time when popular feeling would have supported it in protesting against the cession of Alsace and Lorraine to the conquering power. For this attitude, however, Lord Granville had a plausible excuse. Though the nation was sulky because an effective protest had not been made, it would not have tolerated any policy that might have led the country into war. Moreover, the Army had yet to be reorganised, and till that was done the voice of England was naturally of little account in the affairs of Europe. At the same time the meek and spiritless expression which Ministers habitually gave to their neutrality, irritated a proud and sensitive democracy who were every day taunted by Tory orators and writers with permitting themselves to be governed by a cowardly Cabinet. It seems just to say, even when one makes every allowance for the difficulties of their position, that in their handling of the diplomacy of the Franco-German War, Mr. Gladstone and Lord Granville missed a great opportunity. After the collapse of France at Sedan had been followed by that long series of German victories which ended in the capitulation of Paris, and the Armistice Convention between M. Jules Favre and Count von Bismarck (28th January, 1871), Englishmen were all agreed on one point. To cede Alsace and Lorraine to Germany was, in their opinion, to create a French Poland, or Venetia on the Rhine, whose chronic discontent must permanently imperil the peace of the world. But when the English Government in February attempted to dissuade Germany from exacting terms that inevitably rendered revenge the first duty of every French patriot, England found herself isolated. None of the Powers were prepared to join her in reviewing the conditions of peace which Germany might impose, and the German Chancellor never even deigned to answer the English remonstrance. England, in fact, had moved in the matter too late.