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 Sir Samuel Griffith mainly by annexing the local Irish vote. He is much in the position Mr. Gladstone would have been in but for Lord Hartington and the Liberal Unionists.

If it were thought desirable that Sir Henry Blake should become an Australian Governor, it would have been prudent, perhaps, to inaugurate his antipodean career by sending him to Tasmania, when Sir Robert Hamilton, who would surely have been a persona grata to the local Irishry, and who has proved himself, as the Spectator admits, a "very admirable Governor," might have been transferred to Queensland. Of course it is very easy to move other people's pieces on the chessboard, and, as I object altogether to the present system of appointing colonial governors, I should apologise to Lord Knutsford for unwittingly intruding upon his domain. My chief anxiety, while frankly admitting that I am compelled to form a lower estimate of Sir Thomas M'Ilwraith than I had before held, is to endeavour to be just, and to make the necessary allowance for the position in which he finds himself placed as a local Conservative Premier with a "Parnellite wing," Believe me, Sir Thomas is