The Press.
London, England, 1857-05-09 00:00:00

Volittral.

A Counr OF PravY COUNCIL wag held at Bucking.
ham Palace on Wednesday evening at six o'clock.
The Council was attended by his Royal Highness
Prince Albert and all the Ministers. At the Council,
Mr. John Evelyn Denison, Speaker of the House of
Commons; Sir John AVNeill, er.C.B ; and Mr.
Frelerick Peel, by cornmeal of the Queeo, were
sworn of her Majesty's most Hon. Privy Council, and
took their places at the Bard. The Royal Speech
was also read and approved. Her Majesty gave
audiences to the Earl of Clarenchn, Viscount
Palmerston' and Earl Granville.
CABINET COUNCILS were held at the official resi•
dence of the First Lord of the Treasury on Saturday,
Monday, Tuesday, and We Inesdayin the week.

Sin K. PEEL has resigned his office as Lord of the
Admiralty. Mr. F. Peel, having failed to obtain re-
election, has been compelled to leave the War
Department, and is succeeded in office by Sir John
ltamsden, who will move the estimates.

THE LIVERPOOL FINANCIAL REFORMERS have pub-
lished an address to the representatives of the
people, pointing out their duties in Parliament, and
requesting them to direct their attention to such
measures

as will remove the anomalies of the existing electoral
system, secure a true and free representation to the people,
and render the representatives more responsible to the
represented than they are at present.
The Liverpool Reformers also deprecate Lord Pal-
merston's system of foreign policy, and call upon
members to resist the present " unconstitutional
usurpation of the privileges of the House of Com-
mons," by which war is declared and concluded and
millions of the public money warted wiihout the
expressed sanction of the House of Commons. Thu
address then suggests the following remedies with
reference to the public expenditure :

First, a standing finance committee in the House of
Cotnmons, invested with sufficient powers to superintend
effeeti..ely both the preparation of the estimates of the
public service and their application when voted; secondly,
the enforcement of an honest and intelligible systein of
public book keeping, in lieu of tlv., present jitnible of mys•
teries entitled the "finance ace 'Lints;" and, thirdly, the
establishment of a prompt, eff..ctive, and independ nt
system of audit, such as prevails in France and ot.itr
countries.

The reduction of the present enormous expenditure
of the country and a thorough revision of taxation
are also pointed out as subjects eminently worthy of
attention ; and, among a great many abolitions, such
as of the Bank of England and the Hudson's Bay
Company, long sittings of Parliament and Govern-
ment deckyar Is, dm., suggests the following as the
most important :
At present the great burden of taxation presses u 01
comm.•rce, manufactures, and industry, while realist d
property, which derives nearly all its value from their
prosperity, eseapes comparatively untouched. You arc
aware how the land tax imposed ►n the reign of William
111. as a just equivalent for the conditions on which land
was originally held has been frittered away; and you must
see how monstrously unjust it is that this tax should now
be in some places many shillings, in others only the frac-
tion of a farthing in the pound, and in others nothing at
all. We believe it perfectly possible, by an equitable
system of direct taxation, abolishing customs and excise
duties altogether, or retaining only a few of them, to raise
the present amount of revenue, or even a much greater
sum, with far less pressure on the country, and at much
smaller cost of collection, than under the present system.
We also believe that if such a change were made scarce!),
any bounds can be set to the development of the
national resources which it would permit, or to the
benefits which would How from it to all classes of the
community. We therefore commend to your most serious
consideration the necessity of rigid economy in the public

MAY 9, 1857.

expenditure, and a complete revision of our system of
taxation.
- - - - - -

In conclusion, the address discards the notion that
'numbers have been returned as support.-brs of one
man, pledged to uphold his policy, foreign and
domestic, whatever that may chance to be :
You are expected to act for your country—not for a
party ;to look to measures—not to men. We entertain a
confident hope that if the measures to be proposed by her
Majesty's Ministers are not such as you can conscien-
tiously support you will oppose them, and look fur other
leaders. Of this we are assured, never had any Legislature
such power for good or evil as that now placed iu your
hands.

Mn. COBDEN has addressed a letter to Mr. Alex-
ander Laing, manufacturer, of Hawick, in acknow-
ledgment or a copy of resolutions passed at a public
meeting in that town, expressing sympathy with
Messrs. Cobden, B ight, and Gibson, on their recent
defeats at Huddersfield and Manchester. Mr. Cob •
den, who writes from Midhurs►, April 80, says that
far more has been inferred from his accidental
defeat at Huddersfield than can be fairly attributed
to it :

I had no connection with nor claim on that borough,
and no acquaintance with its inhabitants beyond that
which I formed in almost every considerable place in the
kingdom in the course of the free•trade struggle ; and Mr.
Akroyd, the elected member, is as sound a free-trader as
myself. The invitation to become a candidate, which
emanated from a public meeting, did not reach me till after
my opponent, who occupied an influential local position,
was already in the midst of a canvass from door to door
throughout the borough—an ordeal which I at once
declared I could not go through for all the seats in Parlia-
ment—and his success was insured against all possible
opposition, no matter from what quarter it might have
come. In fact, my entrance upon the contest was at the
time simply and solely a mistake, but, owing to the cir
curnstances under which it was fallen into, it involved no
blame or serious responsibility to any one
But let it not he supposed that I am so unreasonable as to
feel aggrieved by the result. I should be about the last
man living to be justified in giving way to such a feeling.
I have hal more than my share of the honours of political
warfare, and why should I expect to escape its reverses.
For personal reasons it is convenient to toe at present to
be relieved from the duties of Parliament. I must confess,
however, at the same time, that there never was a moment
when, on public grounds, I would have more gladly taken
my seat in the Flouse of Commons.

The Catholic electors of Leeds also forwarded an
address, in which the following passage occurs

Entertaining a grateful recollection of the many
and successful services rendered by you to the great
principles of civil and religious liberty throughout your
brilliant career in Parliament, and by the influence of your
name on the large number of tho-e who have espoused the
Liberal cause in England, we feel it a duty imposed upon
us by the present crisis of public affairs to render to you
our most sincere and hearty thanks for the labours you
have undergone and the real you have displayed on behalf
of that cause in which we, a.nong many others, have so
deep and important an interest.
Mr. Cabilen replied :
It is true that I incurred some little obloquy in certain
quarters by opposing the Ecclesiastical Titles Bill in 1851,
but I did so in consistency with that principle of religious
liberty which has always been the maxim of my political
life, and which I apply alike to all denominations. Had
the measure ati:•cted the church government of the
Wesleyans, the Independents, or the Baptists, I should
have equally opposed it. That bill was a resort to the
civil power for penalties to prevent a religious community
from carrying out an organisation which they consider
needful for the full and free exercise of their faith—an
organisation, be it rernembereti to our humiliation, wWeli
is in force in every other country, in some, as in Prussia,
with the co-operation of the Government, and in others, as
the United States, with its neutrality. Such a recourse to
the secular arm in matters of opinion is to my judg-
ment to return to the persecuting policy of the dark
ages; for whether we seek to thwart the free exercise of
religious faith by the dungeon and the stake or by the
milder penalties of an Eeelesiamical Titles Bill, the
principle is the same, modified though it be in its action
by the spirit of the age.

THE BTsHOp or• VicroniA, at the annual meeting
of the Church Missionary Society on Tuesday,
moved the following resolution :
That this meeting, while it would express its deep con-
cern at the late manifestation of a fanatical and sanguinary
spirit amongst the revolutionary party in China, snil also
at the infraction of pear,' 'f Anton, as well as the late
events in Turkey and Tends, w nevertheless, remem•
ber that the God of notions has °lien, in the history of
missions, overruled the darsest providences for the fur-
therance of His truth, and would cherish the hope that
lie will yet cause the late wide dissemination of Ilia holy
Word in those countries to hear fruit, and make the wrath
of men and the diplomacy of Governments subs,2rvient to
the entrance of Gospel light.
In supporting the resolution, the right rev. prelate
adverted to the present state of affairs in China, and
strenuously defended the course adopted by Sir J.
Bowring :
It appeared to him (tile bishop) that England had a
mission to fulfil in extending commerce, civilisation, and
Christianity, and it was utterly impossible that she could