The Express.
London, England, 1867-07-02 00:00:00

I.Ast NIGHT'S REVORM DEBATE.

The acceptance by the government of Mr. Horsfall's
proposal to confer an additional member on the largest
towns is a confession, the Times says, that it was a mis-
take to oppose Mr. Laing's proposal, and confirms the
assurance of all dispassionate men that the menace to
reconsider the position of the government with respect to
the bill, should Mr. Laing's motion be adopted, was an
idle threat. The minority of 61, however, against
the clause. indicates a reserve of dissatisfaction which
may ultimately prove to be a spring of danger.
Wiser as the second thoughts of the ministry have been
than their first, much was done to mar their grace and
diminish their effect by the statement, made by the Chan-
cellor of the Exchequer, that Salford must cease to expect
• second member, and other populous boroughs must with.
draw their claims, as a consequence; but, perhaps, at the
end of a week this withdrawal of a promised addition to
the representative power of the towns in question will be
in turn withdrawn. The Times then again refers to cumu-
lative voting as • means of so tempering the ascendancy of
great constituencies as to be saved from degenerating into
the control of mobs.

Mr. Disraeli is described by the Daily Nrws as making
this fresh sacrifice of principle in his usual way, by allow-
ing an under.eecretsry like Mr. Adderley to deliver a pas-
sionate, no-surrender speech, and then quietly doing what
Mr. Adderley bad denounced—his object probably being to
allow the irresponsible members of the government now
and then to use their old language,and to display their old
temper, in order that the House of Commons and the
country may measure the interval between toryism as it
was and toryism as it now is, and may know whom to thank
for the change. But practiced as Mr. Disraeli is in the art
lof yielding, he does not yet know how to make
a frank and generous concession. To persist in his deter-
mination to deprive four of the new towns of the members
promised them, would give the aspect of a mere barter to
that which be wishes to offer as a boon. The additional
members to Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham, and Leeds
shculd, in accordance with the principle which he ban
himself laid down, be sought from the same source whence
he has drawn the other seats which he has divided in
unequal proportions between boroughs and counties.
The members for Marylebone, the Daily Noes adds, Mr.
H. Lewis and Mr. Thomas Chambers, did what lay in
their power in last night's debate to justify the old pre-
judice against metropolitan members, and exhibited an
inability to rise above local jealousies into national con-
siderations.

The adoption by the house of Mr. Candlish's clause
providing that no elector shall sell his services to • canal.
date, and that no candidate or his agent shall purchase
them, and that, in the event of such prohibition being
disregarded, the parties offending, whether candidate,
agent, or elector, shall be held guilty of a misdemeanour,
and the votes so given be void—is regarded by the Post
as by far the most direct thrust that hue ever yet been
levelled against the most pernicious, because hitherto
legal, kind of bribery that is employed at elections.
The acceptance of the clause referred to by the Post is
also a subject of congratulation with the Herald and
Standard.

- - -
Mite Court.

WINDSOR CASTLE, Jrty 1.

The Queen, the Queen of Pnitisia, the Prince
►nd Princess Louis of Hesse, Princess Louise, Prince
Leopold, and Princess Beatrice, went out in the grounds
this morning.
Prince Edward of Saxe Weimar visited her Majesty and
the Queen of Prussia today, and remained to luncheon.
The Countess of Derby and Lord Stanley arrived at the
Castle yesterday, and had the honour of dining with the
Queen and the Royal Family.
Colonel the Hon. A. Hardinge hes succeeded Colonel
the lion. D. de Hos as Equerry in Waiting.

A committee of the Lords of her Majesty's Most Hon.
Privy Council oat yesterday at the Privy Council.office,
Whitehall, on the subject of the cattle plague. The Lords
present were the Right Hon. Gathorne Hardy and the
Right Hon. C. B. Adderley.
A deputation from the Guardians of the Poor of the
township of Leeds, introduced by Mr. Beecroft, M.P., and
consisting of Mr. Middleton, Mr. Gledhill, and Mr. Lampin
(the clerk to the guardians), had an interview with the
Earl of Devon at the office of the Poor-law Board,
yesterday.
Despatches were received yesterday at the Colonial-
office from the Governor of Gibraltar. Despatches were
sent to the Governors of the West India Islands, British
Columbia, and the Australian Colonise.