NEWS OF THE WEEK.
THE Ministers were feasted by the Lord Mayor at the Man- sion House on Wednesday, and made their usual 4loge of their own doings during the Session. The most important feature cf the solemnity was Lord Beaconsfield's speech, in reply to t .at delivered by Lord Hartington in the debate concern- ing Mr. Chaplin's motion for a Commissionof Inquiry into
i Agricultural Distress, on the 4th July. It s clear that the Prime Minister regards this speech as the one danger-signal of the Session, and is most anxious to define the position of the Government in relation to it. Lord Hartington's
speech, he said, was "a very remarkable one, and with the social position Lord Hartington occupies, as the eldest son of one of the great proprietors of the soil, must exercise great influence on public opinion." That speech had given him an impression, he said, that Lord Hartington c&isidered the present land system of our country as having failed, and as having so failed that it could never be restored. Its failure consisted, according to Lord Beaconsfield's understanding of Lord Hartington, in this,—that English agriculture now supports three classes out of the soil,—the landlord, the farmer, and the labourer,—whereas a better system would dispense with the share of the landlord -altogether. We have dealt with Lord Beaconsfield's curious reply elsewhere. It proved completely that he does not know -even the alphabet of political economy, but it proved nothing else, except, indeed, that he was anxious to have his say in reply to Lord Hartingtoni and to have it at once. Indeed the Mansion House would hardly, we think, be the place selected for such a reply, if the Minister were not meditating the step -of asking the country to try the issue between Lord Hartington and himself, and to try it soon.
