trust to but your own energy and the sublime instinct of an ancient people. You must act as if everything depended on your individual efforts. The secrect of success is constancy of purpose. Go to your homes, and teach there these truths, which will soon be imprinted on the conscience of the land. Make each man feel how much rests on his own exertions. The highest, like my noble friend the chairman, may lend us his great aid. But rest assured that the assistance of the humblest is not less efficient. Act in this spirit, and you will succeed. You will maintain your country in its present position. But you will do more than that-you will deliver to your posterity a land of liberty, of prosperity, of power, and of glory.

RESIGNATION OF MINISTERS, 1873.

MR. DISRAELI'S EXPLANATION OF REFUSAL TO TAKE OFFICE, MARCH 20, 1873.

[After the defeat of the Government on the Irish Universities Bill on March 11, Mr. Gladstone placed his resignation in the hands of Her Majesty, who at once sent for Mr. Disraeli. The right honourable gentleman declined to take office in the existing House of Commons, even with authority to dissolve it as soon as public business should allow. His reasons for this decision are here given, and he confutes the doctrine that no leader of Opposition should ever give a vote liable to defeat the minister unless he is prepared to take his place. Such a doctrine, if generally acted on, would make all effective criticism impossible; since a statesman strong enough to take the minister's place could not long remain in Opposition; and one not strong enough to suceed him would not be entitled to oppose him.]

R. SPEAKER,-Before I refer to the allusions which the right honourable gentleman has made to some controversial elements which, during the last few days, may have arisen between him and myself with respect either to the conduct of this side of the House, in reference to the recent vote, or my own in declining the high responsibility which Her Majesty graciously suggested to me to undertake, I think it may be convenient that I should as clearly as I can place before the House exactly what part I have taken in these recent transactions, and give fully the reasons for the counsel which I presumed to offer Her Majesty under the circumstances. It was on this day week, when I was about to enter the House of Commons, that I had the honour of receiving a letter from the Queen, informing me that Mr. Gladstone-I am correct in mentioning. the right honourable gentleman's name-had just quitted the

Palace, having offered his own resignation and that of his colleagues to Her Majesty in consequence of the vote at which the House of Commons arrived on the preceding Tuesday, and that Her Majesty had accepted those resignations. The Queen inquired from me whether I would undertake to form a Government, and commanded my attendance at the Palace. When I was in audience I inquired of Her Majesty whether she wished that I should give a categorical answer to the question asked in Her Majesty's letter, or whether she desired that I should enter fully into the political situation. Her Majesty was graciously pleased to say that she should like to have an answer to that question, and that afterwards she wished me fully and freely to speak upon the present condition of affairs. The question being whether I would undertake to form a Government, I at once said that I believed I should have no material difficulty in forming an administration which could carry on the affairs of this country with efficiency, and be entitled to Her Majesty's confidence, but that I could not undertake to conduct Her Majesty's affairs in the present House of Commons.

After that I proceeded-with Her Majesty's permission-to lay before the Queen the reasons which had induced me to arrive at this conclusion, and I will now, in as succinct a manner as I can, give these reasons to the House. I called Her Majesty's attention to the fact that, although the course of the public elections during the last two years had shown, in a manner which I think must be acknowledged by all impartial persons, that there was a change, and even a considerable change, in public opinion, and in favour of the party with whom I have the honour to act in Parliament, still it was a fact which ought to be placed clearly before Her Majesty, that the right honourable gentleman opposite-notwithstanding all these gains by the Conservative party-was supported by a very large majority, and that I could not place that majority at a figure which could be accurately expressed, unless I stated that it approached more nearly to ninety than eighty. I believe I was correct in saying the majority of the right honourable gentleman was eighty-eight.

Then I called the attention of the Queen to the fact that

the recent division indicated no elements to which I could look with any confidence to obtain subsidiary or extraneous aid which would in any considerable degree, or perhaps in any degree whatever, modify the numerical position of the right honourable gentleman; that the discomfiture of the Government was caused, and the majority against them created, by the vote of a considerable section of the Liberal party, consisting of Irish members, who might be fairly described as representing the Roman Catholic interest, and that there was no common bond of union between myself and that party. I stated that they would act and most honourably act-with a view to effect the object which they wish to accomplish, namely, the establishment of a Roman Catholic University; that, in my opinion, that question had been definitely decided by the nation at the last general election, but that totally irrespective of that national decision, events had occurred in Parliament since, which rendered it quite impossible for me to listen to any suggestions of the kind, because, since the last general election, the endowments of the Protestant Church of Ireland had been taken away from it, a policy which I entirely disapproved, which I had resisted, and which they had supported; and which, having been carried into effect, offered in my mind a permanent and insurmountable barrier to the policy which they wished to see pursued.

Under these circumstances, I had to place before Her Majesty that I, with my colleagues, should have to conduct her affairs in a House of Commons with a most powerful majority arrayed against us. I had to point out to Her Majesty that this was a position of affairs of which I had some personal experience, that I believed it to be one detrimental to the public interest; that it permitted abstract resolutions on political affairs to be brought forward by persons who had no political responsibility, and that those resolutions were referred to afterwards, and precipitated the solution of great public questions which were not ripe for settlement. I represented to Her Majesty that this was a state of affairs which diminished authority, weakened Government, certainly added no lustre to the Crown, but, above all, destroyed that general public confi

dence which is the most vigorous and legitimate source of power. Under these circumstances I felt it my duty to ask Her Majesty graciously to relieve me from the task which she had suggested to my consideration.

Now, Sir, it will be asked, and has been asked, no doubt in every street, and every chamber in this town, why, when being able to form an efficient administration, and having been summoned to the councils of Her Majesty deprived of the assistance of her previous advisers, the only obstacle before me being that I had to encounter a hostile majority in the House of Commons—it will be asked, I say, why, under these circumstances, I did not advise Her Majesty to dissolve Parliament. To that point, with the permission of the House, I will now address myself. Sir, a dissolution of Parliament is a political function respecting which considerable misconception exists. It is supposed to be an act which can be performed with great promptitude, and which is a resource to which a minister may recur with the utmost facility. But the fact is that great mistakes prevail respecting this important exercise of the prerogative. A dissolution of Parliament is a very different instrument in different hands. It is an instrument of which a minister in office, with his Government established, can avail himself with a facility of which a minister who is only going to accede to office is deprived. A minister in office, having his Government formed, with many indications probably of the critical circumstances which may render it imperative on him to advise the sovereign to exercise this prerogative, has the opportunity of disposing of the public business preparatory to the act which he advises.

But the position of a minister who is only going to accede to office is, in this respect, very different. In the first place he has to form his administration, and that is a work of great time, great labour, and of great responsibility. It is not confined merely to the construction of a cabinet, which, when you are honoured by the confidence of many companions in public life, is often the least difficult part of the task; but it requires communication with probably more than fifty individuals, all of them persons of consideration, with whom you must personally confer. The construction of a ministry falls