Chr Vranium.

Mr. Benjamin Disraeli, ci-devant leader of the Protectionist Opposition, but now Chancellor of her Majesty's Exchequer, has issued the following manifesto-address to the electors of Buckinghamshire.

" Gentlemen—I take the opportunity of returning to the county to inform you that, on the dissolution of Parliament, which may be shortly expected, I shall again solicit the distinguished office of being your Member; an honour which you have twice una- nimously conferred on me.

"The occasion is critical, and it is as well to disentangle from the misrepresenta- tions of ignorant or interested persons what is really at stake.

"In 1842, Sir Robert Peel, at the head of the Conservative party, converted a con- siderable and continuous deficiency in the public revenue into a surplus, by the im- position of an Income-tax, which also permitted him greatly to mitigate our tariff.

"These measures realized all the success which the Conservative party anticipated from them. In the course of four years 7,000,000/. of Customs-duties were repealed, without materially diminishing the revenue derived from that branch, and no domes- tic interest in the country suffered from the change. "The principles on which these alterations were effected were the removal of an prohibitions, the reduction of duties to such a scale as admitted 'fair competition' with domestic produce, and the free admission of all raw materials.

" I had the satisfaction of voting for these measures, in company with those gentle- men who now honour the present Government with their support.

"Since the four years, closing with 1845, during which the Conservative party carried these wise and beneficial measures, two great changes in our commercial system have taken place—the free introduction of foreign corn and of stale-grown

sugar.

• The first of these arrangements was not originally contemplated in the commercial policy of Sir Robert Peel, for he opposed the repeal of the Corn-laws within a few months previously to his abrogating them. When he recommended their repeal it was to meet an emergency ; and he stated to Lord George Bentinek, in my hearing, that he believed that repeal would not materially affect the prices of agricultural produce. " The admission of slave-grown sugar was not approved of by Sir Robert Peel. "These two measures, unlike the preceding ones, have occasioned severe suf- fering among the producing classes which they affect. The distress of the agricul- tural classes has been admitted, announced, and deplored from the Throne, under the advice of a Whig Ministry ; and the consequences of the alteration of the Sugar-du- ties were so disastrous to our free-producing colonies, that within two years after the passing of the act of 1846, a Whig Ministry also found it necessary to modify their own measure.

"The sufferings of the agricultural and colonial classes have arisen from their' being thrown into unlimited competition with the foreigner on unequal terms with the rest of their fellow subjects. Those unequal conditions result in great measure from the peculiar imposts and the vexatious regulations to which our agricultural and sugar-producing industries are subject. "The same precipitation which attended the repeal of the protective duties on corn and sugar accompanied the repeal of the Nisi igation-laws. Even the proposers of that measure now admit that 'the shipping interest, exposed to severe rivalry, is subject to burdens and restrictions which impede its prosperity.'

"This is the language of the Minister who himself repealed the Navigation-laws, and yet left the burdens and restriaions which impede the prosperity of our mer-

cantile marine. This opinion will be found in the recent address of Lord John Russell to his constituents. That address deserves the attentive study of the ship- ping interest. " Her Majesty's Ministers would consider these burdens and restrictions with 4 view to their removal. "The farmers hitherto have been the persons who have been most injured by the re- peal of the Corn-laws, but the diminution of rent in Great Britain is greater than is generally supposed. In preparing the financial statement for this year, it was offi- cially represented to me, that I must contemplate, in estimating the produce of the Income-tax, a diminution of rent not much less in amount then 5,000,0001. sterling. Practically speaking. in this country rent has become &return for the capital invested In the improvement of land. Laws to secure a return for such investment are not for a moment to be tolerated, but laws which, by imposing unequal taxes, discourage that investment, are, irrespective of their injustice, Wetly ; for nothing contributes more to the enduring prosperity of a country than the natural deposit of Its surplus capital in the improvement of its soil. Justice to the land, in all systems of finance, is equally the interest of the proprietor and the farmer, but it is also equally the interest of the community.

"There is no portion of the United Kingdom that has suffered more from the pre- cipitate repeal of the Corn-laws than Ireland. The claim of that country tolhe consideration of Parliament is irresistible. "The time has gone by when the injuries which the great producing interests endure can be alleviated or removed by a recurrence to the laws which, previously to 1846, protected them from such calamities. The spirit of the age tends to free intercourse, and no statesman can disregard with impunity the genius of the epoch in which be lives. But every principle of abstract justice and every consideration of high policy counsel that the producer should be treated as fairly as the consumer, and intimate that when the native producer is thrown into unrestricted competition with external rivals, it is the duty of the Legislature in every way to diminish, certainly not to increase, the cost of production. "it is the intention of her Majesty's Ministers to recommend to Parliament, as soon as It is in their power, measures which may effect this end. "One of the soundest means, among others, by which this result may be accom- plished, is a revision of our taxation. The times are favourable to such an under- taking : juster notions of taxation are more prevalent than heretofore; powerful agencies are stirring, which have introduced new phrenomena into finance, and altered the complexion of the fiscal world; and the possibility of greatly relieving the burdens of the community, both by adjustment and reduction, seems to loom in the future, " But nothing great can be effected by any Ministry unless they are supported by a powerful majority in Parliament. Our predecessors were men who, for personal honour and administrative ability, need not shrink from a ccmpanson with any body of individuals qualified to serve her Majesty ; but they were never sure of a Parliamentary majority : hence much of their unsatisfactory conduct. They were justified, from the broken state of parties, in their continuance in office, which they never evinced any unworthy readiness to retain ; but it is far from desirable that such indulgence should become a chronic weakness of our constitution.

" In the brief period during which we have held the reins, although placed in a position of great embarrassment, from the impossibility of at once appealing to the country, we have introduced three measures, which it is hoped will soon become the law of the land. One is a measure of internal defence, which, it is believed, will soon prove both popular, economical, and efficient ; the second would confer on an interesting and important colony a constitution founded on the right principles which should govern dependencies; the third will at length achieve a complete re- form of the Court of Chancery.

"There was a fourth measure which we proposed. Two petty boroughs, long

infamous for corruption, had been justly and wisely disfranchised. We recommended to Parliament that these forfeited seats should be transferred to two of the most important communities of the country, distinguished not only for their vast wealth and teeming population, but by all the endunng elements of national greatness. A combination of Parliamentary sections defeated, on a technical pretext, this wise and generous proposition, which would have added strength and lustre to the House of Commons, and have asserted the popular principle in a manner consistent with that maintenance of classes which becomes a free and ancient Monarchy, and which is the best security for order and liberty.

" The time of the House of Commons has been much occupied of late by a dis-

cussion, whether the management of the Roman Catholic College of Maynooth requires investigation. Without prejudging the question, her Majesty's Ministers have felt it their duty to support such an Inquiry. We have been anxious to subdue the heat of religious controversy, and to deal impartially with all her Majesty's sub- jects whether in communion with the Church of Rome or the Church of England ; but we cannot sanction an opinion now in vogue, that since the act of 1829 the constitu- tion of this country, has ceased to be Protestant. By the Act of Settlement, our form of government is that of a Protestant Monarchy ; and it is our belief that the people of this country are resolved so to maintain it, not only in form but in spirit.

"Various schemes have been devised for the extension and improvement of the education of the people; and among others, a measure was proposed by an intelligent community, during the present session of Parliament, to the principles of which we could not accede. Vie only principle in the present diversity of religious opinion which seems to be just, is that of encouraging the voluntary efforts of the several religious bodies by grants of public money in proportion to the extent to which those efforts have been made. In asserting for all this universal right, we claim for the Church, the national depository of sacred truth, that the freedom of her efforts in the cause of education should not be fettered by regulations and restrictions which are not required to afford security for a due application of the public funds. "I have touched, gentlemen, on most of the topic% which now engage the atten-

tion of the country. They are not mean issues. The country will have to decide whether it will maintain a Ministry formed on the principles of Conservative pro- gress; whether it will terminate for ever, by just and conciliatory measures, the mis- conceptions which have too long prevailed between producer and consumer, and ex- tingiush the fatal jealousy that rankles between town and country; whether our Co- lonial empire shall be maintained and confirmed ; whether the material development of Ireland shall at length be secured ; whether such alterations as time and circum- stances may appear to justify and require in the construction of the House of Com- mons shall be made in that spirit of revolution which has arrested the civilization of Europe, or in the spirit of our popular though not democratic institutions ; whether the Church of England shall still remain a national church; whether the Crown of England shall still be a Protestant crown.

" I believe that the county of Buckingham is not in doubt on these heads, and therefore I appeal to you with confidence for your support. I cannot vie with the patriots and the statesmen whom for so many generations you have sent up to Par- liament; but I will promise you this, on my own part and on that of my colleagues, that if public opinion ratify the choice of our gracious Sovereign, we will earnestly endeavour that the honour and the interests of the country shall not suffer by our administration.

"I remain, gentlemen, your obliged friend and servant, " Hughenden Manor, June 2. B. Disnexi.i."

At a meeting of the electors of Lincolnshire, assembled last week to hear the present Members give explanations of their claims to a renewal of confidence' Sir Montague Cholmeley uttered lugubrious doubts of the Protectionist Premier, to this effect- " When Lord Derby nailed his colours to the mast, I did think his Lord- ship would have stood or fallen by protection to agriculture—that that course would have been his pride and policy ; and in that policy Lord Derby should have had any support. But now Lord Derby has got into office, I find all things changed—all things altered ; and after numerous charges and explana- tions of what one honourable and right honourable gentleman had said in one House and another in another House—after explanations to explain away explanations—I am literally so mystified that I do not know what conclusion to come to with respect to the policy and intentions of the Go- vernment. (Cheers and laughter.) I view with dismay the declaration of tlo Premier, made some days since in the House of Lords."

A Coroner's Jury at Liverpool, impannelled over the bodies of the two men Who were killed by the fall of the arches of the Corn Exchange, under the weight of a public meeting, have found a verdict of "Accidental death," qualified by censure. They found that Philip Code, the clerk of the works, was "highly blameable" for allowing the centres to be removed without the express per- mission of the architect, especially as the architect had declared the step would be dangerous till the whole building was completed and thek nate 51 opinion that "the Corn Exchange Committee was not entirely fret from Maine." They also asserted generally, their opinion "that it is a practice much to be censured that public bodies take the lowest tenders for work, without regard te the means of the parties to carry that work to completion."