The Cabinet broke silence on the war just too late
for our last impression; and here we would give a hint to the theologians by observing on the clear evidence of original sin furnished by the malignant tendency of municipalities, and other heavy Philistine bodies, when they find an eminent man an opportunity for a speech by giving him a dinner, or making him a present of something perfectly useless to him, like the freedom of a burgh, to select Friday as the day for that operation, in order to cheat the weekly papers of all chance of criticizing him till the interest of his manifesto is quite past. On Friday week, Mr. Lowe was presented with the freedom of Elgin, which, as he remarked, he could never make any use of ; but he made the reply expected of him, by talking on all interesting public matters except Elgin, which indeed was not a public matter. He ridiculed the expectation which seemed to be formed that the fagged and weary Cabinet should sit "all day round a table covered with green cloth, receiving and sending forth telegrams, and deliberat- ing on every letter and every leading article in every newspaper." The Ministry "know their own minds well, and have laid down rules by which they mean to act" with regard to the great conflict going on in Europe ;—those rules being that they won't open their lips in the way of mediation except to transmit proposals from either party without criticism, unless asked by both parties to arbitrate,—a rule which looks very like Mr. Lowe's own, it is so peremptory, clear cut, and, from the laissez-faire point of view, so logical, and, as we have given reason for believing elsewhere, so artificial and unwise.
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