The amendment to the Address, moved by Mr. Jesse Collings
on Wednesday, regretting that no measure had been announced in the Speech from the Throne for the relief of the agricultural labourers, was rejected by the large majority of 84, Mr. Collings having apparently failed to satisfy the House that, with all that the new Government have on hand, they ought to be censured for not placing a measure to relieve agricultural labourers, in the front of the battle. Mr. Collings insisted chiefly on the duty of introducing into England the Acts passed in Ireland to provide labourers with decent cottages. But he did not expect, he said, any help from the Labour party, which was bound to the Government, and had been sub-let by the Government to the Irish Nationalist Party. Mr. Gladstone exerted himself to reply to Mr. Collings, and did so in a very effective speech, in which he bantered Mr. Collings (not, we think, justly) on having deserted the cause of labour during Lord Salisbury's Administration. Listening to Mr. Jesse Collings reminded him, said the Prime Minister, of Baron Munchausen's horn, in which the tunes had been frozen up, but which, when a thaw came on, emitted the frozen tunes in rapid succession. So, too, Mr, Jesse Collings's sympathy with the agricultural labourer, whic'h had been frozen during the last Administration, and so completely frozen, that he would not support even the Gladstonian pro- posal of a compulsory power for providing allotments, was now, in the warmer air of Opposition, thawing again, and giving out in rapid succession all the old music. Mr. Collings obtained 228 votes, against 812 given for the Government,—many Unionists evidently absenting them- selves. Nor can we wonder at it. It was not a case for an amendment to the Address.
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