ublic. Immediately after he had been able sufficiently to ripen
his own thoughts on the matter, he did not scruple to lay them
before your Majesty; and your Majesty had yourself in one sense
contributed to the present conclusion by forcibly pointing out to
Mr. Gladstone on one or more occasions that in the event of
difficulty, under the present peculiar circumstances, no
alternative remained except a dissolution. The mild weather is
very favourable to Mr. Gladstone, and if as he has prayed there
shall be a council on Monday, he hopes to have the honour of
coming down to Osborne.

To his eldest son he wrote on the following day:--

We here of the cabinet(304) and the whips are in admirable
spirits. We dissolve on Finance. The surplus will be over five
millions. We promise as in our judgment practicable,--1. Pecuniary
aid to local taxation, but with reform of it. 2. Repeal of the
income-tax. 3. Some great remission in the class of articles of
consumption. (This last remission probably means sugar, but
nothing is to be said by any member of the government as to choice
of the article.) We make it a question of confidence on the
_prospective_ budget. As far as we can judge, friends will much
approve our course, although for the public there may at first be
surprise, and the enemy will be furious.

III

The prime minister's manifesto to his constituents at Greenwich was
elaborate and sustained. In substance it did no more than amplify the
various considerations that he had set forth in his letter to Lord
Granville. The pith of it was a promise to diminish local taxation, and to
repeal the income-tax. At the same time marked relief was to be given to
the general consumer in respect of articles of popular consumption. One
effective passage dealt with the charge that the liberal party had
endangered the institutions of the country. "It is time," said Mr.
Gladstone, "to test this trite and vague allegation. There has elapsed a
period of forty, or more exactly forty-three years, since the liberal
party acquired the main direction of public affairs. This followed another
period of about forty years beginning with the outbreak of the
revolutionary war, during which there had been an almost unbroken rule of
their opponents, who claimed and were reputed to be the great preservers
of the institutions of the country." He then invited men to jud