A personal acquaintance with the House of Commons, if it does not exactly reverse the estimate one might form of the members by merely reading about them in the newspapers, puts them at least in a new perspective, whereby the size of some is sensibly increased whilst that of others is most sensibly diminished. More especially is it a result of this acquaintance that a good many members who do not make much of a figure in print come to be regarded as men of a vast deal more consequence in every way than those who occupy a much larger quantity of type. One of the gentlemen whom all sincere Liberals in the House must delight to honour, although he does not obtrude himself much on the public, has just been speaking to his constituents preparatory to the opening of Parliament. I mean Mr. White, the member for Brighton. He does not you see get the honour of having his speech reported in The Times. When he addresses the House he is sure to be cut down to a paragraph or two of small type. Yet if I were asked to name the forty best men in the House of Commons Mr. White would be one of them. If I were asked to name forty incorruptible men – incorruptible I mean in the highest sense of the word – I do not think I could get up to forty but Mr. White would be one of them. Not for all the wealth of all the squires that sit opposite to him would he do an action with the remotest affinity to a job. You may say this is poor negative praise. It is! When the House of Commons comes to be looked at pretty closely, and a glimpse obtained of all the very dirty wheels and tallow candles, this modest virtue of incorruptibility, which according to copy-book is a matter of course, will be found to be a very positive virtue indeed, and a very rare one too. But Mr. White has has higher merit if you like to call it higher, though I do not. He has a singular power of seeing through a humbug, and also discerning in a moment the real truth of a matter, though all the charms of rhetoric may lead the other way. I remember most vividly on one occasion, when Mr. Gladstone in his usual perfervid style had been painting in glowing colours in a budget speech the prosperity of the country, depicting us as half way up to the seventh heavens because we had exported so much and imported so much during the year, Mr. White had the courage to get up just as members poured out of the House after this great display had come off, and boldly denounced the doctrine that national prosperity could be really tested by Board of Trade returns. They merely showed, he said, that the rich were getting richer, but how about the poor? There was really more sound doctrine in those few words spoken amidst that rush to dinner than there was in all the splendid oratory which had beguiled us for two hours previously. So now - Mr. White has been speaking at Brighton what I take to be one of the very best extra parliamentary speeches we have had this recess. He boldly takes the bull by the horns and charges our present House of Commons with being "uncaring, unknowing, prodigal and mean." So it is; and four words could not be found which described it more exactly. Mr. White knows too from bitter experience that it is useless to try and make it anything else. He is one of the few members who persistently watch the Estimates, and I believe the only vote which has ever been cut down in committee during the last ten years, notwithstanding the many weary hours which have been spent session after session in fruitless debate, was one which was reduced by &#pound;400 - the salary of a travelling director of the National Gallery. That the labours of these self-denying patriots have been altogether in vain it would be wrong to say, because they have kept alive at least a sort of fear on the part of Government for any superfluity of jobbery, but that is all they have been able to do, and Mr. White is quite right in praying for Reform, which alone can make economy possible. When Reform comes it will not send to the House many men better than himself.

The notices of motion for next session in the Order Book of the House of Commons are already thirty-two in number, and some of them are of considerable consequence. Lord Ernest Bruce means to call attention to the present mode of admitting strangers to the House; Lord Eleho is going to move for leave to bring in a bill to amend the present execrable law of master and servant; Mr. Ewart will endeavour to procure the abolition of punishment by death, and an extension of the metric system of weights and measures, Mr. Leeman will reintroduce his bill about bank shares; Mr. McCullagh Torrens will try to persuade the House to improve the dwellings of our artisans and labourers; Mr. Reardon suggests the repeal of the legislative union between England and Ireland and the restoration of the Constitution of 1782, with the additional pronoun that that one of the Royal Princes shall always be Viceroy with a suitable revenue; Mr. Kennedy will propose a series of resolutions on Irish misgovernment, and last and most important of all come two notices from Mr. O'Beirne and Mr. Neate respectively, the one about small properties in Ireland, and the other about small properties at home. Mr. O'Beirne it appears intends to move an address to Her Majesty praying that she will recommend the House to grant a loan of not less than one million to be applied to the purchase of estates in the Irish Encumbered Estates' Court, which are to be cut up into small farms of not less than ten or more than one hundred acres and re-sold to the occupiers. Mr. Bright's idea, therefore, has already fructified so far. Whether it will ever get any farther in the present House of Commons I very much doubt. If Mr. O'Bierne though may expect opposition, what may not Mr. Neate expect. His is actually going, the impious, the profane, to touch the very ark of the covenant. He is going - I will give his blasphemy in his own words in his own words - to move for a "select committee to inquire into the nature and operation of the laws respecting the alienation of real property, and the mischiefs and dangers arising from the excessive accumulation of land in the hands of a few owners." What think you of that.