As I intimated in my last, the learned barrister from your port had' promised to give the Old Volumes a lecture, and this promise was redeemed on Monday evening, when Mr. Drummond discoursed in St. Andrew's Hall on " National Trouble." As was to be expected, the lecture led up to the present trouble in South Africa. Mr, Deummond blamed the Government for not foreseeing it. The British Government had been dexfand blind to the threatenings of trouble before the Indian Mutiny broke out, and it then came as a bolt from the blue, Similarly they might have seen what was impending in South Africa, He laid the blame on the system we had fallen into of allowing the Empire to be governed by private secretaries and permanent officials. This is indeed very largely the case. The colonies are ruled not ty the Secretary of State but by the clerks in Downing Street.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.