and most influential recruit never spoke in public without showing that, when he did not abandon his principles, he was at variance with his colleagues? Various rumours were current as to a conflict of opinion on the subject between Mr. Gladstone and his colleagues and the Queen. Ultimately it was decided that there should be no dissolution before spring. Worn with anxiety, irritated by the failure of his plans for recovering popularity through a reconstruction of his Cabinet, sick in body and mind, the Prime Minister in January fell seriously ill. A fortnight before the opening of the Session he paralysed his Party with amazement by deciding to dissolve Parliament. Seldom has so momentous a decision been arrived at in circumstances so strange and so peculiar. Writing to Lord Salisbury on the 26th of January, 1874, Mr. Hayward says: “Alderson (whom I saw yesterday) thought it unlikely that you would be brought back earlier than you intended by the Dissolution, which has come on every one by surprise. The thought first struck Gladstone as he lay rolled up in blankets to perspire away his cold, was mentioned as a thought to daughter and private secretary, then rapidly ripened into a resolution and submitted to the Cabinet. The secret was wonderfully well kept by everybody. The Liberals are delighted, and the Disraelites puzzled and amazed.”[63] Parliament was dissolved on the 20th of January, and it was reckoned that the new House of Commons would be elected by St. Valentine’s Day. Mr. Gladstone’s Address to the electors of Greenwich set forth at great length the reasons for his sudden appeal to the country. But Mr. Forster gave the best and briefest explanation, when he told his constituents at Bradford that the Dissolution was due to the petty defeats and humiliations which the Government had suffered since Mr. Disraeli’s refusal to relieve them of the cares of office, and to a desire that the electors should decide whether Mr. Disraeli or Mr. Gladstone should have the spending of the enormous surplus of £6,000,000 at the disposal of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Mr. Gladstone in his declarations of policy referred to the Ashanti War as a warning against “equivocal and entangling engagements.” He complained that the House of Commons was overburdened with work, and, with an eye to the Irish vote, he approved of delegating some of its business to “local and subordinate authorities” under the “unquestioned control” of Parliament. He held out no hopes of effecting any great changes in the Education Act, but he promised a measure of University Reform, supported the extension of Household Franchise to the Counties, and pledged himself to abolish the Income Tax. His meagre references to Foreign Affairs seemed to show that Mr. Bright had forced the Cabinet to accept the unpopular policy of selfish and self-contained isolation, which virtually ignored the higher international duties of England as one of the brotherhood of European nations.