The Manchester Financial and Parliamentary Reform Association opened its season
in the Free Trade Hall on Thursday, with a crowded meeting. The two Members, Mr. Milner Gibson and Mr. John Bright, attended and made speeches, with Mr. Brotherton, M.P., and Mr. Henry, M.P. Mr. Gibson spoke generally of the necessity for maintaining the effort to reform abuses. Mr. Bright devoted himself to Ireland; describing the well-known characteristics of its condition, which he imputed to feudal and exclusive laws intended "to keep up the old blood" of the English settlers and ap- propriators; and the remedy that he suggested was the thorough expurga- tion of those laws from the statute-book. Mr. Taylor of Birmingham ex- pounded the nature and working of the freehold land scheme; and a re- solution was passed to form a similar society in Manchester.
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