4 JANUARY 1873, Page 9

Mr. Cardwell has made two speeches to his Constituents, one

on Monday and one on Wednesday evening. The fiist contained little that was new, being a defeace of the Licensing 'Bill as essential to the morals of the country"; of the American arbitration, as having left England and America without a boundary quarrel; of the localisation of troops in Oxford as the continuance of an ancient custom, and inevitable for topographical reasons; and of the Income-tax as the great lever of Free Trade; and the second was not much more instructive. In it Mr. Cardwell told the "Druids" and the public that the dream of 1851 had proved false; that wars had been more instead of less frequent, there having been at least six great wars,be- sides the China War and the Abyssinian Expedition, in ten years; that the Army must, therefore, be maintained and kept in strict connection with the Reserve Forces of the country; that the strength of England must be made a heavier weight in the scale of European peace; that the Autumn Manoeuvres showed- that this policy was being successfully carried out; that the list of measures for next Session was as long as the list of measures passed in the three last; and that the Government intended to begin with the thing they intended to go on with, and stick to it till they got it through. He did not say what this thing was, or give any hint of the coming pro- gramme, observing upon all future questions what officials think a "judicious reticence."