In a subsequent passage of this letter, Mr. Gladstone gives
the cue to his followers as to the course they should pursue towards the ad interim, Ministry :—" Whatever we may think of the conduct and course of the late Opposition, it has become the Queen's Government, and the interests of the Empire are primarily in its hands. I now look to its future and not its past. My duty is to support and assist it, as far as I have the power, in doing right, and not to anticipate that it will do wrong." That is a far more generous and, we are convinced, wiser policy than the plan of premature resistance to rumoured designs which some Liberals are inclined to follow. They seem to expect not only that they can give up power and yet keep it, but that those to whom they have given it are bound to be their lieutenants. The latter are, on the contrary, bound to act on their own consciences and their own principles, and take the consequences.
