Ministers were able to lay before” Parliament on February 6, 1872, a Queen's Speech which congratulated her faithful Commons on the relative freedom from crime in Ireland, and the remarkable prosperity of agriculture in that country. The Government were unpopular in the country, but had been protected from sinister consequences by the indifference to politics which invariably springs from extraordinary prosperity. The consequences of the financial disasters of 1866 had wellnigh passed away, the anxiety of the formidable troubles in France had been relieved, and the country had entered on that cycle of prosperity, the knell of which was not to be sounded till, six years later, the City of Glasgow Bank fell with dismal crash.

But the opening incident of the session was as inauspicious to the Administration as the close of the last had been. In defending themselves against a Vote of Censure for the appointment, contrary to statute, of their late Attorney-General, Sir Robert Collier, to a seat on the Judicial Committee, Ministers, with a normal or nominal majority of more than 100, were only able to show one of 27.

In a second Vote of Censure, moved by one of their own supporters, Mr- Dixon, on account of the operation of the 25th section of the Elementary Education Act, they were more fortunate, being able to command the support of many Conservatives, among whom was Mr W. H. Smith, who spoke in deprecation of premature interference with the Act.

The Ballot Bill was once more introduced by Mr Forster, and probably there never was a bill secretly more detested by the House of Commons than this one.