.NEWS OF THE WEEK.
AIR. BRIGHT began his speech at Manchester on Monday by an assertion that Her Majesty was in favour of Reform, and that the danger of the House of Peers was from within, not without. He repeated his old statements,—that of seven millions of grown men only a million and a quarter had votes, that the county representation was "a dead body tied to the living body of the borough representation," that 109 boroughs, with 1,350,000 people, paying 367,000/. incowe-tax, retiirned 215 members ; while 145 boroughs, with 1,305,000 people, paying 5,240,000/. income-tax, only return 181.members. He believed there wasno security against bribery except in large constituencies and the ballot, held that the opposition to the Reform Bill was "malig- nant and discreditable," asserted that the Tory party had endorsed Mr. Lowe's libels on the workmen warmly ; urged that' if there were poor and deplorable classes in England that was the fault of the ruling class—which is " worrying the dry bones of theology ;" boasted of free trade as the cause of the present prosperity, and declared that Lord Derby's failures were recorded in the annals of England for thirty years. He strongly recommended them to reject Lord Derby's Reform Bill by anticipation, for "if he does introduce one, it will be as before—it will be some juggle, some dis- honest trick, something base, like the means by which they over- threw the Bill of Lord Russell's Government."
