23 JUNE 1883, Page 3

Lord Carnarvon made a very sensible speech on agricultural depression

on Tuesday at Newbury, in which he deprecated the disposition to rely on Government for help in relation to such matters as agricultural depression, and quite admitted that so far as it was not due to the increase of competition from the United States, it was due chiefly to bad seasons, though he thought something might be done by a fairer systenx of rating and more care in preventing the importation of disease, to diminish the farmer's difficulties. We are glad to see Lord Carnarvon sticking steadily to his Free-trade doctrine, at a time when Lord Salisbury flirts with the friends of retaliatory tariffs, and Sir Stafford Nortbcote pleads for a fair hearing for Mr. Ritchie, and is quite benignant even to Mr. Lowther.