Mr. Bright made a great speech at Birmingham on Tuesday
evening to his constituents, which, though occupying six columns of the Times, was telegraphed in full, and appeared next morning in all the London papers. The important points of the speech— which was full of examples of the speaker's singular felicity of ex- pression—are analyzed in another column ; but we may here re- mark that Mr. Bright believes, with ourselves, that the great pressure on the landlords will come from emigration. With the American Government offering 160 acres gratis to every adult person who applies for it, and to minors if they have served in the army or navy, it will be impossible to retain the new generation of agricultural labourers. They know where America is, and what it costs to go there ; and their single difficulty now is the passage- money. If that is surmounted by any large number, the "family remittances" will soon, as in Ireland, draw the labourers to the ports as by an irresistible attraction. The landlords' choice will then lie between seeing wheat land laid down in pasture and making the day labourer very much more comfortable, rebuilding his cottage, employing him all the year, and remodelling the allot- ment system. Those who think all such ideas absurd, forget that there are not two millions of adult male labourers, and that an emigration equal to that now going on from Ireland would reduce them one-half in twenty years.
