The Right Hon. T. M. Gibson, President of the Board
of Trade, addressed his constituents at Ashton on the 20th inst. He made a speech, on which it has been our . duty to animadvert in another column, but we must here add that he spoke out honestly and bravely about American affairs, believed that the war would terminate slavery, held the South guilty of having begun it, main- tained that the sole object of the secession was to establish a great slave empire, denied that the South was for free trade, and finally denounced " the rebellion as a revolt against democracy, free labour, and the rights of nature." Speeches like these, coupled with articles like the one published in the present number of the Edinburgh on the "The Negro Race in America "—the ablest and most passionless summary which has yet appeared,—show that opinion is steadily swinging round. Mr. Milner Gibson was always for freedom, but he would not be quite so decided if he were not tolerably sure of his audience.
