Mr. Disraeli in refusing to govern England himself whilst he prevented Mr. Gladstone from governing it, was pursuing a policy which was as unconstitutional as it was unpatriotic. When he said he could not take office because he must dissolve in May in any case, and that he could not dissolve because he had not a policy to go to the country with, and when he explained that till he had time to study the archives of the Foreign Office he could not tell what ought to be done with questions such as the Russian advance on Khiva, and the Three Rules of the Washington Treaty, men smiled cynically. They asked each other if Lord Palmerston in 1869 was afraid to take the place of the Tory Government because he wanted time to form an opinion on Lord Malmesbury’s policy towards the Italian war of Liberation. Yet Mr. Disraeli gave a truthful account of his motives. He had no policy. Hence when he dissolved Parliament, as he was bound to do after winding up the business of the Session, he must have gone to the country on a purely personal issue between himself and Mr. Gladstone. Doubtless at a time when the nation was getting wearied of restless statesmen, a contest of the sort would have been disastrous to Mr. Gladstone, but not when raised by Mr. Disraeli, who was notoriously even flightier than his antagonist. To have won a General Election on such an issue the Tories must have fought under Lord Derby’s banner. Mr. Disraeli, however, had no intention of giving way to Lord Derby, and his followers did not dare to put him aside, more especially as he had in view a clever scheme of strategy. His idea was to force Mr. Gladstone to dissolve on a positive programme, and then to defeat him by a running fire of destructive criticism. These tactics might bring the Tories back to office under his own leadership, absolutely uncommitted to any definite policy whatever.