If the farmers understood Mr. Gladstone's speech of Monday, and
all that it implied, how delighted they would be ! Mr.
Harcourt proposed that the burden of the main roads should be lifted off the local rates, and divided between. the county rates and the Consolidated Fund, There is no doubt that these main roads aro the communications which benefit the whole country, and should, in part, be maintained by it ; but the termination of local control would lead to great extravagance. Mr. Glad- stone, therefore, resisted the proposal, alleging that heavy sub- ventions from the Treasury ultimately raise rents, instead of assisting the farmer ; but declared that Parliament ought to " examine, and examine upon a large scale, what is: the best mode of giving real property that aid which it was once accustomed to receive from personal property.' Further, he declared that "under the present system, the• county authorities represent merely nomination, and it is im- possible for them to control the local authorities," who are representative. Ile was determined to refuse any further hap- hazard. and piecemeal reform, and to look at the question as a whole,—as part, he intimated, of county government. These sen- tences promise a revolution, not only in the government of the counties, which is inevitable, but in their finance, and in both instances to the direct advantage of agriculturists.
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