In a few days Parliament will meet, and already the usual rumours and speculations are current as to the programme of the Ministry. It is very safe to say that there will be nothing in the Speech from the Throne to provoke a conflict. The most prominent feature of the Speech will doubtless be the paragraphs which relate to the great distress in the manufacturing districts, and the admirable spirit with which it is borne by the sufferers and alleviated by the wise munificence of the other classes of the community. There will be an expression of regret for the continuance of the lamentable contest in America, and a hope that it will soon terminate. The country will be congratulated on the extraordinary vitality of its trade and commerce, indicated by the Board of Trade returns, despite the unparalleled disaster which has befallen our greatest branch of industry; and the commercial treaty with France will come in for another laudation. Nothing will be said of the new and indefensible policy of the Government on the Danish question; but the affairs of Greece will be alluded to in a friendly spirit. And finally, Parliament will be congratulated on our friendly relations with all foreign Powers, and the happy prospect of a year of tranquillity. It is rumoured that Mr Gladstone, with his characteristic restlessness, means to propose important changes in regard to the position of the Bank of England; and we have no confidence that the changes proposed by a statesman so crotchetty will be for the better. Although the subject is not likely to be alluded to in the Royal Speech, it appears certain that very considerable reductions are to be proposed in all branches of the national defences. If the work of retrenchment is to be accomplished in a right way, by studying economy without destroying efficiency, the country will be grateful. But if the reduction in the naval and military estimates is to be made, not by improving the organisation and administration of these departments, but by summarily cutting them down—by stopping the work in our dockyards, and dismissing trained soldiers and sailors whose places will by-and-by have to be refilled by raw recruits—it will be a recurrence to the old penny-wise pound-foolish economy which produced the breakdown and disasters of the Crimean war. Time will show. Meanwhile we rejoice to know that the Conservative party, augmented alike in numbers and in prestige, is now so powerful that it ought to be able to resist successfully any measures of wrong policy or mistaken legislation on the part of the Government. The gains and losses at the elections since the last change of Ministry show a net balance of ten seats in favour of the Conservative party—two of which are the new seats, Lancashire and Birkenhead; so that the Conservative Ministry, which was defeated in June 1859 by thirteen votes, would now, in similar circumstances, have a majority of five. But, in truth, the circumstances are _not_ similar.