The Members for Oxfordshire attended, on Tuesday, at a dinner
of the Agricultural Society, but as they dined under an awning, and a thunderstorm was rattling down upon the awning during a great part of the dinner, their political views were not, perhaps, so clearly explained as they might have been. Mr. Henley said he was for Reform, because after it had been so often recommended in speeches from the Throne, he did not choose " to play the hum- bug" any longer ; and he thought the matter had been settled, "he did not say on the best principle, but in the only mode in which it could have been settled with any prospect of perman- ence." Mr. Henley concluded by saying he was for education for the agricultural labourers, only begging the Education party " not to endeavour to take away from useful occupations those persons whose services were necessary to the land." In short, Mr. Henley is for " doing ma duty by un, as I a' done by the loud," but no more. The land's needs must measure the labourers' leisure. Colonel North complimented Mr. Disraeli for his strategy, and Colonel Fane forced on Mr. Henley the doubtful compliment of having contributed almost as much as Mr. Disraeli to '‘ the leap in the dark." But Colonel Fane declined to eulogize the leap for the present. He was not very depressed about it, but also not sanguine.
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