of having in the future a distinct nationality, and perhaps a great history.

But Australia, or Australasia, would also be well fitted to take her part in that wider and grander federation which is already the dream and the faith of many colonists and some Englishmen. This is the third choice which Mr. Bourinot contemplates as offered to the colonies and to England. Why, it is asked, should there not be a great Confederation of England, of Ireland, and of the states that are now colonies? Why should there not be an Imperial Parliament, then truly Imperial, in which each of these separate provinces or states should be represented for common purposes, while each had separately its local legislature to arrange its own domestic affairs? Why should Canada, should Victoria, should Cape Colony, or Natal, or New Zealand, be left absolutely without a voice in the decision of those important questions of foreign policy, of peace and war, which may have such momentous results for any one of those provinces? A war with the United States would undoubtedly bring on an invasion of Canada. The Crimean war seemed at one time destined to invite a Russian raid upon some of the Australian colonies. Why should colonies like these be allowed no share in deciding the policy which may possibly come to its most momentous issue on their own soil? If the colonies are never to have that voice in Imperial affairs, is it likely that they will long continue merely to hang on to the skirts of England? Then, again, one great difficulty between England and her colonies is caused by the different views which they take on questions of tariff and taxation. Canada, for example, enforces against Great Britain the severest protective system. English politicians and manufacturers chafe so much at this that it seems likely to be the cause at one time or other of a quarrel which no fine phrases on either side can conjure away. An English statesman of the present day has said that, as we lost some of our American colonies because we insisted upon taxing them, we may lose the others because we will not permit them to tax us. Might not this difficulty, too, be removed from the path of the future if colonists and inhabitants of the mother country alike sat in the one Imperial legislature, and discussed in common their great com

mon interests? Is not some such principle, indeed, the probable solution of the problem of government for systems made up of various and widely separated provinces and nationalities? Here, too, would be a framework always wide enough for the reception of new creations. The process which in the American Republic converts first a desert into a territory, and then a territory into a state, would admit new province after new province into this great federated system. Who shall say that even the future relations of the peoples of Hindostan might not be satisfactorily provided for by such a principle of federation? Immense, no doubt, are the difficulties that lie in the way of such a scheme. To many minds it will seem that only the merest dreamers could entertain the idea. But the so-called dreamers would, perhaps, have something to say for the prac ticable nature of their plan. They might at least retort upon their critics by asking, "What, then, have you who call yourselves practical men, and despise the dreamers of dreams-what have you to suggest? Do you really believe that things can always go on as they are going now? You have eyes; open them and look beyond your own parish, your own club, coterie, or village, and say whether you think it possible that great colonies like those of British North America and those of Australasia are likely to remain always content with their present anomalous condition, or that your own people would remain forever content with it, even if the colonists were never to complain? What, then, do you expect? Annexation to America in the one case; independence in the other; or perhaps independence in both, and in all? To that result, if it must come to that, the mind of England would have to reconcile herself. She has no Imperial privilege to interfere with the destinies of the world. But in the mean time would it not be the part of you, the practical men, to consider whether that other suggestion is not more desirable as well as more easy to realize; that scheme of a great federation which should reconcile the several interests and the individual energies of the colonies with the central policy of a great, free empire?

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CHAPTER LVI.

BEGINS WITH SOLDAN, ENDS WITH PRESTER JOHN."

IN the summer of 1867 England received with strange welcome a strange visitor. "Quis novus hic nostris successit sedibus hospes ?" Looking forward into the future we may, indeed, apply yet other words of Dido, and say of the new-comer to these shores, "Quibus ille jactatus fatis!" It was the Sultan of Turkey who came to visit England-the Sultan Abdul-Aziz, whose career was to end ten years after in dethronement and suicide. Abdul-Aziz was the first Sultan who ever set his foot on English soil. He was welcomed with a show of enthusiasm which made cool observers wonder and shrug their shoulders. The Cretan insurrection was going on, and the Sultan's generals were doing cruel work among the unfortunate rebels of that Greek race with which the people of England had so long and so loudly professed the deepest sympathy. Yet the Sultan was received by Englishmen with what must have seemed to him a genuine. outburst of national enthusiasm. As a matter of course, he received the usual Court entertainments; but he was also entertained gorgeously by the Lord Mayor and Corporation of London; he went in state to the Opera and the Crystal Palace; he saw a review of the fleet, in company with the Queen, at Spithead; he was run after and shouted for by vast crowds wherever he showed his dark and melancholy face, on which even then the sullen shadow of the future might scem to have been cast. His presence threw completely into the background that of his nominal vassal the Viceroy of Egypt, who might otherwise have been a very sufficient lion in himself. Abdul-Aziz doubtless believed in the genuineness of the reception, and thought it denoted a real and a lasting sympathy with him and his State. He did not know how easily crowds are gathered and the fire of popular enthusiasm is lighted in London. The Shah of Persia

was to experience the same sort of reception not long after; Garibaldi had enjoyed it not long before; Kossuth had had it in his time. Some of the newspapers politely professed to believe that the visit would be productive of wonderful results to Turkey. The Sultan, it was suggested, would surely return to Constantinople with his head full of new ideas gathered up in the West. He would go back much impressed by the evidences of the blessings of our constitutional government, and the progressive nature of our civic institutions. He would read a lesson in the glass and iron of the Crystal Palace, the solid splendors of the Guildhall. He would learn something from the directors of the railway companies, and something from the Lord Mayor. The Cattle-show at the Agricultural Hall could not be lost on his observant eyes. The result would be a new era for Turkey -another new era: the real new era this time. The poor Sultan's head must have been sadly bemused by all the various sights he was forced to see. He left England just before the public had had time to get tired of him; and the new era did not appear to be any nearer for Turkey after his return home.

Mr. Disraeli astonished and amused the public, toward the close of 1867, by a declaration he made at a dinner which was given in his honor at Edinburgh. The company were surprised to learn that he had for many years been a thorough reformer and an advocate of popular suffrage, and that he had only kept his convictions to himself because it was necessary to instil them gently into the minds of his political colleagues. "I had," he said, "to prepare the mind of the country, and to educate-if it be not arrogant to use such a phrase to educate our party. It is a large party, and requires its attention to be called to questions of this kind with some pressure. I had to prepare the mind of Parliament and the country on this question of Reform." All the time, therefore, that Mr. Disraeli was fighting against Reform Bills, he was really trying to lead his party "with a gentle hand, thither, oh, thither," toward the principles of popular reform. This then, people said, is what Vivian Grey meant when he declared that for statesmen who would rule, "our wisdom must be concealed under folly, and our constancy under caprice." Some members of the party which

Mr. Disraeli professed to have thus cleverly educated, were a little scandalized and even shocked at the frank composure of his confession; some were offended; it seemed to them that their ingenious instructor had made fools of them. But the general public, as usual, persisted in refusing to take Mr. Disraeli seriously, or to fasten on him any moral responsibility for anything he might say or do. It might have been wrong in another statesman to put on for years the profession of Conservatism in order that he might get more deeply into the confidence of Conservatives and instil into them the principles of Mr. Bright. But in Mr. Disraeli it was of no consequence; that was his way; if he were anything but that he would not be Mr. Disraeli; he would not be leader of the House of Commons; he would not be Prime-minister of England.

"At this mo

For to that it soon came; came at last. ment how many a powerful noble wants only wit to be a minister; and what wants Vivian Grey to attain the same end?" What Vivian Grey once wanted to attain that end he had long since compassed. Only the opportunity was lately needed to make him Prime-minister; and that opportunity came early in 1868. Lord Derby's health had for some time been so weakly that he was anxious to get rid of the trouble of office as soon as possible. In February, 1868, he became so ill that his condition excited the gravest anxiety. He rallied, indeed, and grew much better; but he took the warning, and determined on retiring from office. He tendered his resignation, and it was accepted by the Queen. It fell to the lot of his son, Lord Stanley, to make the announcement in the House of Commons. There was a general regret felt for the retirement of Lord Derby from a leading place in politics; but as soon as it appeared that his physical condition was not actually hopeless, men's minds turned at once from him to his successor. No one could now doubt that Mr. Disraeli's time had come. patient career, the thirty years' war against difficulties, were to have the long-desired reward. The Queen sent for Mr. Disraeli, and invited him to assume Lord Derby's vacated place and to form a Government. By a curious coincidence the autograph letter containing this invitation was brought from Osborne to the new Prime-minister by General Grey,

The