NEWS OF THE WEEK.
THE scene has changed once more, and this time it seems as if a catastrophe were immediately at hand. On Thursday evening the House of Lords was startled by a report that Lord Derby had resigned, and on his entrance it was at once seen that the report was true. He took his seat below the gangway, and rising at once, stated that he had tendered his resignation to her Majesty, and that it had been accepted. He had received both from the Queen and the Premier full permission to explain the causes of his retirement, but in the present state of foreign relations, there are many decisions which it is unwise to make public at the time, and he would only say that grave conclusions had been arrived at by the Cabinet, of which he disapproved. He did not say that those measures "necessarily and inevitably tended to bring about a state of war," but they were measures " which, in the exercise of my deliberate judgment, I cannot consider as being prudent in the interests of European peace, or as being necessary for the safety of the country, or as being warranted by the state of matters abroad." He had not dissented from his colleagues about the Congress, but had dis- sented about these measures. He held his colleagues in the highest regard, but when questions of European interest are at stake, "when the matters in discussion are really matters involv- ing the issue of peace and war," no man can be actuated by con- siderations of personal regard. "If that were possible, I should be of one mind with my noble friend at the head of the Govern- ment." Lord Derby sat down amid a deep, though scarcely expressed emotion on all sides, which made itself felt by all observers.
