Vrnuiurial.

The provincial news is once more full of speeches by Members of Par- liament.

Conspicuous among them is that of Mr. Bright. He attended a meet- ing in the Town-hall on Tuesday, and, with his colleague, Mr. Schole- field, addressed his constituents. Mr. Scholefield advocated a Reform Bill, non-intervention, and a reduction of expenditure. Mr. Bright, as usual, took a wide sweep. He condemned our wasteful and profligate expenditure. People are anxiously asking how long the Chancellor of the Exchequer will be able to raise 70,000,0001. ? It is the governing class which is guilty of this waste. Our foes are not those who might come from abroad ; they are in our own household. In 1830, the ex- penditure, including the cost of collecting the revenue, amounted to 53,000,0001., 28,000,0001. being set aside for the debt incurred in those vile intermeddlings which our forefathers undertook in the affairs of continental Europe. In 1834, the expenditure fell to 49,000,0001. At that moment, there had been an enormous cry of peace, retrenchment, and reform. They got a partial reform, and some retrenchment. So long as the popular voice was so raised, the expenditure was reduced to something like a moderate amount ; but, as political feeling subsided and the Tory party came into office, the expense began to creep up. When- ever the people took their eyes off it, the expenditure began to rise. In 1839 to 1841, the expenditure rose again to 53,000,0001., and in 1844 to 55,000,0001., and remained at that amount, or thereabouts, until 1853, with the exception of the years 1848 and 1849, when there were revo- lutions all over the Continent; and our Government always took the opportunity when anything was going on upon the Continent to ask the people for more taxes. Mr. Bright next prucceeded to the year 1854, when the Russian war broke out. In 1854, the expenditure went up to 65,500,0001.; in 1855, to 88,500,000/. ; and in 1856, the year the war closed, it fell to 75,500,0001. In 1857 and 1858, the ex- penditure was 6.5,000,0001., in 1859, 64,000,0001., and in the past year it would be something like 71,000,000/. Thus in the twenty- six years which have elapsed since 1834 the expenditure had risen 22,000,000/, But that did not give an adequate idea of the case. In 1834, the Government spent 21,000,0001. in keeping the peace, in dispensing justice, in preparing what was necessary for the defence of the country. In 1860, it spent 43,000,000/. for the very same purposes, being more than double the sum spent in 1834 ; and, if they returned to the ex- penditure of that year, they might abolish the income-tax and the duties on tea and sugar, and at the same time a vast sum might be saved as a sus- tentation fund, out of which hundreds and thousands might obtain more steady employment and a higher rate of wages than they can attain at present. Mr. Bright, parenthetically, excused himself for never attend- ing discussions on the Estimates ; it is not inviting. Then he gave another illustration. The million agricultural labourers in England and Wales earn at 251. a head, 25,000,0001., three times less than the Parlia- mentary vote for the year. The yarn and cloth produced in Lancashire are worth 70,000,0001. He then made these preposterous statements. Well, then, our governing classes, our rulers, with the most docile, the most industrious, and probably the most church and chapel-going people in the world, devoured every year, this year, and last year, certainly more than the whole produce of the most gigantic industry the world had ever seen. How was it done ? He would tell them, and also who did it, and more, he would tell them how it hap- pened that up to the present moment it had been done with apparent impunity. Parliament was composed of two Houses, one of them was separate from and had no responsibility to the people. The House of Commons was more especially intended to take care of the people, and especially of their pockets, though last year it ventured to tax their pockets with the greatest audacity. He had never heard the feeblest protest raised in the House of Lords against the extravagance of the Government. It was worth their while to know that, with very few exceptions, the members of the present peerage owed their peerage to creation within the last hundred years. The origin of many of them arose from the rotten borough system ; any man who could get four, five, or six seats in the House of Commons at his command to serve the Government of his day could, by ways known to such gentlemen, pro- cure to himself in all probability to be made a peer. All the modern peerage was bred in the slime and corruption of the rotten borough sys- tem, and they need not look to a House so constituted for any great anxiety to save the pockets of the nation. Coming to what was called the People's House, he believed that no assembly ever existed that was less calculated to govern economically than the House which calls itself a popular and representative body, though three-fourths of its members owed no allegiance to any popular constituency.

Mr. Bright next arraigned the naval and military services as the causes of wasteful expenditure. They have built palatial clubs ' • they have also a special press devoted to their cause, and are allied with the Court, the Peerage, and the great territorial interest. There is a constant pressure upon the Government, which the Government finds it difficult to resist, and they have great power in Parliament.

Having disposed of the Peerage, the House of Commons, the Army, and the Navy, Mr. Bright proceeded to give a "character " to the Em- peror of the French. We have made two wars in partnership with him, he has made a treaty of Commerce, he has abolished passports ; he is friendly to us—are these signs of war ? Since the days when France and England waged perpetual war with each other, centuries ago, there had never been a monarch upon the throne of France who, in the same period of time, had done so much to draw the two nations together, and to put an end for ever to strife between them. He admitted that the French Government spent too much upon her military armaments, but it

should be borne in mind that the Emperor knew he had not too many friends among the orthodox monarchs of Europe, that the English aris- tocracy, whose mouthpiece was the Times, did not like him or his family, and that we have in our navy 84,000 men and boys, being more than all the men and boys in the mercantile marine of France, and 60,000 more than were in the Royal Navy of France. The Emperor of the French being sent out of court with a good cha- racter, Mr. Bright assailed the Volunteers. The Government has allowed the press to make false statements to encourage the Volunteer movement. Some people, he said, call the Volunteer movement mania, and others patriotism. lie would not give it any harsh names, conceiv- ing that many had joined the Volunteer force from motives of patriotism. That movement might be regarded in two ways—either they were in danger of some attack from abroad ; or they intended to raise a cheap force and so diminish the extravagant expenditure on the regular army. As to any attack from abroad, the Government knew that it was the merest chimera ; but they looked to the Volunteer force to create a greater taste for military display, so that less pressure might be excited in favour of a reduction of the standing army.

Mr. Bright closed with an amazing proposition.

The people of France wished for peace with Europe, and especially with England. He believed that if our own Government gave authority to Mr. Cobden to ascertain whether the Government of France would consent to an amicable arrangement by which the navies of the two countries should not pass their present bounds,—he believed that it would be received by the French Government with as cordial a feeling as it received the proposition to make that great treaty of commerce. Of course, the men who suspected the French Emperor would smile at this credulity. He believed the opinion to be a sound one, but he was sorry to say that, judging from the past, he believed that the greatest obstacles would be found on this side of the Channel to any such convention.

[Mr. Bright has lately seen the Emperor. Is this the message he has been deputed to bear to the British people ? If so, Napoleon must think us greater gulls than we are admitted to be.]

Mr. Monckton Milnes, at Pontefract, reviewed the great subjects of the day—China, Italy, the United States, and the Reformatory move- ment. On the question of Italy, he said— He knew many people said it was impossible Italy could ever become one great nation. They said that since the old Roman Empire it had never been one nation, and it never would be ; but he thought the people who said this forgot that there was hardly any other nation in the world of which the same thing might not have been said at some time. For instance, France was formerly made up of a large number of different kingdoms, such as the kingdom of Burgundy, the dukedom of Normandy, the kingdom of Navarre, &e. There was a time when England was split up into seven dif- ferent kingdoms, called the Heptarchy, and before that there were all sorts of little Governments,—he believed there was a King of Leeds once ; yet England gradually formed itself together till it became the great country it now was • Scotland was alive to the importance of the same course of action ; Ireland was also annexed ; and ao, in time, the three countries be- came the United Kingdom, and had never tried to disturb that unity since. He could see no reason, therefore, historically, why Italy should not become one of the great united nations some time or other, just as France or Eng- land had done.

In the course of his narration of the causes and progress of the quarrel in America, he expressed a widely-spread feeling in this country— The English were often charged with rejoicing over the misfortunes of other countries, but there was a general sorrow and universal regret at this sudden disruption of the United States. Of course, they had a material in- terest in this matter, and could not but look with alarm on the effects of a civil war or a servile insurrection in the States in checking the supply of cotton, and thereby restricting the manufacture of cotton and the employ- ment of labour in the manufacturing districts of Lancashire and Yorkshire ; but this was not the only feeling which was passing through the minds of the English people, and there was no one, of whatever party, who did not view with the deepest sorrow the present aspect of affairs in America. All they could hope was, that the tobacco States might check the violent fana- ticism of the South, and so mediate between the North and the South as to reduce the evil to its smallest compass, and prevent any long and continuous civil war. He perfectly agreed with Mr. Seward that it was quite impos- sible to imagine a peaceful secession of the United States, and that as long as those secessions continued, civil tumults and civil war would continue ; BO that, perhaps, the present state of affairs in America was only the begin- ning of one of the greatest disasters that had ever come upon the human family.

Mr. Charles Buxton spoke at the Working Men's Institute at Maid- stone; also taking the troubles of the United States as his theme. He pointed to slavery as the cause of the trouble, and diverging from that to the question of cotton supply, fixed his hopes on India as the country most likely to fill up the void occasioned by the failure of the crop in the Slave States. He also mentioned Western Africa and other countries, dwelling upon the labours of Mr. Clegg, and the rising traffic in cotton with the people of Abboskuta. He felt no doubt himself that, in the long run, the prosperity of the world would be largely increased by any event that would hinder the production of cotton in the United States, and thus stimulate its production by free labour in other portions of the globe.

The Manchester Chamber of Commerce held a meeting on Thursday It was a kind of Conference, at which deputies from other Chambers were present by invitation, and was intended as a collective demonstra- tion on Indian policy, so far as it affects trade. Mr. Edmund Potter presided. The starting-point in the proceedings was a report from the Chamber, setting forth its view of the state of India from a financial and commercial point of view. They desire a reduction of expenditure ; the resumption of public works, even by the raising of a loan if required, so that cheap and easy transit may be secured; improved laws; • and a sepa- ration of the Governments of each Presidency. Then followed resolu- tions. A very general opinion was expressed that we must look to India as the source of a permanent supply of cotton. "The cotton is there, and only wants bringing to the ports." A resolution was passed, calling for a reduction of the army, especially of the Native army, and armed police. It was resolved that the resumption of reproductive works is so important, that it would justify the Government in raising a loan for that purpose. The question, however, that attracted the greatest atten- tion, was the 10 per cent duty on imports. A resolution was passed, declaring high customs' duties unsound in principle, and never expedient in practice. It was argued that the 10 per cent duty, acting as a pro-

tective duty, will drive the English manufacturer out of the market, and ' revive the old Native manufacture. There are now, it was said a mil- lion spindles making in this country for India ; and there are 82,566 spindles and 240 looms actually at work. The 10 per cent duty pr.)tects these manufacturers at the cost of Glasgow and Manchester, and by the gentlemen of these towns it was denounced in the strongestterms. There was a demand for unfettered trade, cheaper conveyance, and protection to capital in the shape of a law giving summary remedies for the enforcement of con- tracts. The general opinion was, that the Natives should be stimulated to produce raw material, that the Government should see that there are means of transmitting this raw material to ttie market, that no duties on imports should be levied, and no duties on exports, such as saltpetre for instance. Indian government in general was condemned.

There may soon be a vacancy in the representation of Coventry. Mr. Edward Ellice, who has been Member for Coventry, with one slight interval, since 1818, is now obliged to retire in consequence of in- disposition. He thinks he may recover, but he feels that his constituents require the active services of a younger man, and he intends to move out of the way at another election.

Mr. Titus Salt has announced to the electors of Bradford that he is not well enough to face another session, and must resign as soon as Par- liament meets. The names of six probable candidates are already men- tioned; the best known among them being, Mr. W. E. Forster, of Bu- ley, Mr. Edward Miall, and Mr. Edward Akroyd.

The Liberal Association of Bristol have held a meeting, and have de- clared for entire abolition of Church-rates, actuated thereto by Mr. Dis- raeli's manifesto ; a comprehensive measure of Parliamentary Reform ; a reduction of expenditure ; an equitable adjustment of the Income-tax ; and a repeal of the Paper-duty.

Mr. Bright warmly supports the people of Accrington in the resistance they have offered to that exaction," so " odious and unjust,"—the Easter dues. He recommends them to oppose it to the utmost of their power, and, for the purpose of creating an interest in the question, to carry it to a higher tribunal. He advises " passive resistance," and an association " to support those who are attacked by the clergyman.or the law."

A meeting has been held in Leeds, Sir George Strickland in the chair, to support a demand in Parliament for a bill, giving a majority of rate- payers power to exclude " the liquor traffic " from their district !

The Abolition of Hop Duties League held another meeting at Maid- stone, on Thursday. There was a full muster of the leaders of this new agitation.

A quarrel arose among some men drinking in a tavern at Liverpool. They left the place, separating into two parties. Two men, Cassidy and Donovan, began the dispute anew, and Cassidy, drawing.a sheath knife, stabbed Dono- van in the neck, killing him on the spot. Not content with this, Cassidy stabbed Donovan's uncle thrice in the neck as he was lifting up the dead body of his nephew. The assassin got away.

A young woman was found dead in a-field near Hambrook, in Glouces- tershire. The body was half reclining on a bank, and bleeding at the month. As she had been seen out with her sweetheart late _at night in that very field, it was at once suspected the young man had strangled Ser. But there were no marks of violence, and the medical men are of opinion she died of palpitation of the heart.

Fugitive swindlers have a poor chance of escape if they fly in the direc- tion of the Antipodes. They forget the overland route ! One Winks ran away from Newcastle last June, after "realizing " all his estate, and mar- rying his deceased wife's sister. Frauds, too, were discovered when• he had gone. When it was found that he had sailed for Australia, a detective was sent to Melbourne overland, and reaching the port before Winks, watched for him, caught him asleep on board ship, and brought him home. The strange part of the story is, that this man, before he obtained credit at New- castle, had suffered two years' imprisonment for fraud, had been an insol- vent, and was at the time an uncertificated bankrupt !

The accident at Chatham has laid bare the defective arrangements in the engineering department. A Court of Inquiry, held there, have decided that the north gunshed, where the explosion occurred, was unfit for the purposes of a laboratory, and that the direful effects of the accident were increased by the deposit of much combustible matter in the shed which ought to have been elsewhere. They have condemned the shed, and have censured the Sergeant-Major in command. He will be tried by a court-martial.

A vessel wrecked in sight of port is not uncommon, but we do not often hear of ships going down off the dock-gates. Yet this happened at Liver- pool, last week. The Telemach, 2000 "tons, with a full cargo of cotton, hemp, wool, linseed, from Bombay, struck on a sand bank off the Albert Dock, swung round, and dashing against the dock-wall broke her back and went down. Fortunately, the bulk of her cargo was saved. It is said that these sandbanks form so rapidly in the Mersey, that they completely baffle the skill of the marine surveyor.