In the same speech, Lord Salisbury was very entertaining as
to the inevitable and perfectly constitutional weakness of all British 'Governments. He said, indeed, that they were more like a "political pressure-gauge "than anything else. They went where- -ever they were urged hard enough to go ; and he created much amusement by confessing that in this respect Conservative and Liberal Governments were very much alike,—and he might have added, with the illogical negro, "especially the Conservative." Parents who did not wish to see the State definitely throwing its influence in favour of secular education should make a considerable effort, he thought, to bring pressure to bear on "the pressure- gauge" in the opposite direction. We agree with Lord Salisbury. But it is not very encouraging to think that 52,000 people out of 60,000 in Finsbury, and 54,000 out of 58,000 in Marylebone, have no particular opinion on the subject, feel a sublime indifference to the character of the education given. With such results as that, -" the pressure-gauge" becomes quite untrustworthy. The hidden ,currents of the indifference not registered at all, might be far more important than the minute balance of pressures recorded.
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