Mr. Baxter addressed his constituents at Montrose on Thursday in
an able, but unfortunately sordid speech. After recapitulating the achievements of the Government, he intimated that Mr. Glad- stone had, perhaps, other nice things in store ; thought that the laws of entail, primogeniture, and transfer required modifica- tion; objected to the concentration of masses of landed- pro- perty in one hand ; denied that landlords could be permitted any longer to rule the counties ; and thought the time had arrived to settle the vexed question of the Appellate jurisdiction. He- quoted with pleasure statistics of reductions in clerical expendi- ture, less than £100,000 in all, but wished for much larger savings in the Fleet and Army. "We were not going to send soldiers to Antwerp, or Cronstadt, or Constantinople, and he hoped no sane people believed any longer in invasion." He wished for reduc- tions, so that "a generous and patriotic people might be rewarded by a free breakfast-table or a substantial reduction of the income- tax." Mr. Baxter would fight for a cause, we doubt not, in the
manner, but his speech is only an expansion of the old- advice to sell your birthright for a mess of pottage. Give up the freedom of the seas, if only you can reduce the income-tax, and let Belgium be enslaved rather than pay sixpence a pound more for tea. Empires are not founded, or maintained, so.
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