Mr. Moncrieff, Member for Edinburgh, met his constituents last Friday,
and made a speech on Reform. It was, as usual with Mr. Moncrieff, moderate, sensible, and liberal, but without originality. He thought the way in which the Reform Bill had been carried would be a great blow to party government, but believed Mr. Disraeli had acted from conviction, though he ought to have expressed his convictions sooner. He thought the Reform Bill would do good, enabling the constituency to abolish many shams and pretences ; but it required two improvementa—the extinction of the ratepaying clauses, and an increase in the redistribution of seats. He called upon the elite of the working=men, who under the 71. Bill would have been at the bottom of the scale, but are now about its centre, to moderate the crude ideas and wild expec- tations of those below them, and finally doubted whether any legislation as to Church or land would make Ireland less of a -difficulty to the Government,—an idea with which we entirely disagree.
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