Mr. Grant Duff has been delivering one of his brilliant
surveys of English politics to his constituents at Elgin, and he has never delivered one more brilliant,—or worse. We have criticized it carefully elsewhere, and will, therefore, here only touch on the points there left unnoticed, i. e., on those on which we have less to object. He, maintained that when the Ballot Bill had passed, we should have reached the limit of the great organic changes likely to be at once adopted ; that some modification of the House of Lords would be needful, but that it would be probably proposed from within, and that there was no wish in the country for a violent change ; that the Southern Church was still too strong to be attacked by statesmen who have the proper regard for "method in politics," but that it, like the House of Lords, must be regarded as having received a first " avertissement " which should be a warning to it to make concessions to the spirit of the times. Further organic changes, therefore, being, in Mr. Grant Duff's estimation, out of the question, be believed that the great poli- tical commandment of the immediate future should be the en- richment of the people,—especially by the policy of a free breakfast-table, and resistance to all military panics tending to increase of the Estimates. The Liberal party should take up the legacy bequeathed to them by Mr. Cobden, keep out of European quarrels, remit the indirect taxes on everything but tobacco and alcoholic drinks, strengthen the diplomatic force of the Foreign Office, and amend the land laws.
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