24 JANUARY 1880, Page 3

Mr. Burt, the universally respected Member for Morpeth, who speaks

for the working-class with an authority such as no other Member of Parliament possesses, addressed his consti- tuents at Bedlington this day week, in a speech of censure on the Government as severe and unqualified as that of the keenest of all their critics. He described their policy as unwise and immoral in its end, and nr.•t only un- wise and immoral, but even granting for a moment its end, vacillating, temporising, and blundering. " In South Africa," the Government had been " cruel, grasping, and unjust. In South Asia they had added meanness, mendacity, and hypo- crisy to their cruelty and injustice." He advocated strongly a complete and frank reversal of our policy in Afghanistan, and his speech was cordially received. Mr. Richard, too, the Member for Merthyr Tydvil, in a singularly striking speech, has delivered himself of a similar censure.