Sir Stafford Northcote made a speech, very much in Lord
Derby's sense, on Wednesday evening, at Barnstaple, at the Rose Ash Agricultural Association. He said that Reform was carried by Lord Derby in order to prevent change,—to keep England as much the same as possible, small improvements excepted. The change actually effected will in no way alter " the balance of power" in this country,—though the one Tory cry was that Lord Russell's far smaller Bill would completely revolutionize it. Sir Stafford Northcote spoke earnestly against electoral corruption, and was evidently keen for the Bill of last- session as altered in committee, as a great step to prevent it. With the help of this measure, he thought everything would go on. much the same as before, and the cause of Conservatism be really advanced. Sir Stafford said that he, as a public man, like most other public men, had been a great deal knocked about, but he thought it was a useful process. It " knocked the nonsense out of them." Perhaps it does, but we fear it knocks not a little into them, too. Is it nonsense or not, this new theory which has been knocked into Sir Stafford,—that the risk of a fundamental change in policy varies inversely as the amount of change made in constitutional machinery ?
