NEWS OF THE WEEK.

THE House of Lords sat on Monday. and Tuesday, then adjourned till the 21st; the Commons sat on Monday, Tuesday, and Wed- nesday, then adjourned till the 17th. There was therefore but half a week in Parliament. As to the two rival "great measures," the Irish Coercion Bill and the Corn Bill, they are just where they were before the week began. The Irish Members would not relinquish their obstructions ; Sir Robert Peel would not budge an inch from his punctilio. The Protectionists, without con- descending to an alliance with the Irish Members, have profited by the delay, so far as a present postponement of the measure which they hate : substantially, of course, they have gained , nothing. Expectants of place—speculators for the fall of Minis- try—are rising in their hopes. Sincere Free-traders are anxious at these vexatious delays. But of ill parties _perhaps the Minister ltiltenlp$ aireded.bi IVO ttiattfWard turn of Weirs. Grant that he is IiipOnt of formazid precedent, the policy which ,betraye& lain into the hands of the Irish Members is at fault. , He is baffled, and cannot get on. Government have at last been compelled to interfere for the rescue of those who are suffering, or threatened with suffer- ing, through the reaction in the railway speculations. Many of the speculators would voluntarily retire with their past losses, but they are prevented by the state of the law, which treats the embiyo railway company, before obtaining its bill, as a simple partnership, and forbids abandonment of the concern without the consent of all the partners ; so that any sanguine or wrong- headed shareholder can tie the rest to the bond. Ministers propose to enable the majority of the shareholders to decide upon the prosecution or abandonment of any scheme ; giving to the company a useful check, not only over a troublesome minority, but also over a corrupt or improvident directory. Difficulties of detail are anticipated in the working of the measure—such as the probability that it may give undue power to the mere purchaser of scrip at a discount, to compel a winding-up of the concern even in sound schemes : but abuses of that kind have only to be foreseen to be prevented by the conditions of the bill, to be brought forward after Easter. In the mean time, all proceedings with railway bills are to be suspended. Mr. Hume has set Parliament upon another useful task. A great number of "private bills" are introduced annually to effect kcal improvements : there is no method or economy in regard to them, for want of some central control. Mr. Hume has obtained a Committee to investigate the subject and devise a remedy. The waste of expense is the great evil apparent to him : we think more of the waste of energy, the heat and animosity expended in the details of every bill, though such details might be a matter of course; and we regard still more the bad legislation which is the result of that manufacture of bills in the offices of country attornies, amid the broil of corporation quarrels. With proper attention, Mr. Hume's Committee may make a very useful re- port.

The customary minimum of adjournment at this season is shortened to the Commons by three days in order that the Go- vernment Friday may not be lost ; for Ministers cannot readily dispense even with one day. Honourable Members are punished by shorter holydays for their dilatoriness in legislation.

It is Easter : we have reached the mid-way resting-place in the session and turn round to survey the progress thus far. As usual, t is not satisfactory. Small advance has been made to- wards fulfilling the large promises of the Queen's Speech and Ministerial explanations at the beginning of the session. Sub- stantially we are still at the beginning; we have not ,rot much further than the original development of Sir Robert Peel's scheme. It has been explained to the House of Commons ; four

of the several pieces of which it is composed have been formally introduced—the Corn Bill, the new Tariff, and. the bills for im- proving the management of Highways and the law of Settle- ment; but neither of these has yet passed the Commons as a "bill." One single measure of moment, passed by the Lords, also stops at its first stage in the Commons—the Irish " Assassi- nation ' Bill.

Other subjects of minor importance have been discussed, and some few measures have been forwarded. Bills to supply em- ployment and food in Ireland have been pushed on promptly; but

they are little more than formal sanctions of purely Ministerial measures, about which there could be scarcely a question. There

have been a few Anti-Poor-law movements for debate. Convict-

ism in Van Diemen's Land has been discussed, without practical result for the abused colony.. Mr. Thomas Duncombe has tried

to get back Frost and his fellow rebels under a free pardon. A commission of inquiry into Welsh ignorance has been appointed. Several inquiries into Railway matters have been ordered, and a bill has been introduced to enable shareholders to stop their own directors from carrying out mad speculations. Thanks have been voted severally for three Indian victories. But the subjects that have absorbed almost exclusive attention in the Commons have been, first Protection and Irish famine, and latterly the Corn Bill and Irish assassination. That a subject has engaged attention in the Commons, is almost another form of saying that practical measures have been obstructed. And so it is now : no progress has been made with the measures that have been "discussed" with such idle diligence. The Corn Bill sticks at its second reading—on the threshold of the Committee. The consequences of delay in this measure, and in the o one of the new Tariff, are becoming serious. The usual practicehas been followed in the case of the Tariff, of permitting the reduced duties to be levied, the Treasury taking a bond for the payment of the balance in case the Government measure be rejected after all. But merchants do not like toined- dle with a process so cumbersome. Even if they were to release articles at the lower duty, they would not know what price to charge the consumer ; for if they should have to pay up the ba- lance of the old duty to Government, they could not send out supplementary bills to their customers, making a surcharge upon the price to reimburse themselves. The delay of the Corn Bill is the more deplorable, inasmuch as all uncertainty of the trade in bread must be. pernicious, to say nothing of the trade in land. But in the case of Ireland the mischiefs of delay are yet more glaring. Here is a people enduring periodical starvation, which

is now about to reach its climax ; and all that is yet done is to

sanction some minor temporary palliatives. The Government tell us that assassination has increased so much that some new step must be taken to put it down ; yet Parliament is talking about the step, not taking it. The plea for delaying coercion is, that no measure of amelioration is before Parliament; and Government is blamed for not having such measures at hand to accompany its coercive bill. But who has such measures ready ? Surely not the objectors, chief and most violent ; for Mr. O'Connell's budget of nostrums is not worth mention among substantial measures ; and

Mr. Poulett Scrope's more rational proposition was barely listened to even by his friends,—because, forsooth, Mr. Scrope is a person

of no great " weight" in the House. The " emergency " in Ire- land has been attested any time these ten years ; Lord Devon made a report a year back ; but no measure is yet ready. What a clumsy plan of transacting business is this Yet is it no novelty, but the old grievance. When it is charged specially against Sir Robert Peel, a factious delusion is practised ; for it is equally chargeable against his predecessors all round. It can only be imputed to him in that, as he is a superior doer, more was expected from him in the way of efficiency in public business. But the just adaptation of means to ends is still a desideratum. The behests of the Empire have outgrown the faculties of the Ex- ecutive. No mind grasps the whole subject. No department of the Government is sufficiently organized. There are too few able hands ; every able and willing hand is overworked. A totally opposite course from the beaten track of Parlia- mentary routine would be worth the trial—to name bills no sooner than they were ready; and to bring them forth, in complete shape, as soon as named. If a Government were unable to do this—if it really could not accomplish the promulgation of mea- sures within a reasonable time after the first advertisement—it had better avowedly forego the effort until it should be better prepared; limit the programme, shorten the session, wind up with energy, and make ready for a better recommencement.

Meanwhile it does not lie in the mouth of the dilatory to sneer at the activity of private Members. The man who has been the readiest with something like remedial measures for the state of Ireland this session is Mr. Poulett Scrope,• and Sir James Graham, with nothing ready to propose himself, led the band of sneerers. English statesmen are odd people they must settle everything without delay ; but they must do so with absolute perfection of settlement; and as each man, "the centre of his own universe," has his own notions of perfection, the settlement is delayed by interminable hagglings, and is a botcn at last. Besides these sources of weakness, common to all Administra- tions, Sir Robert Peel's Government has suffered from another— the absence of some of his most useful colleagues. With intelli- gence and courage to shape their conduct by their own advanced opinions, they were so sensitively honourable as to resign their seats on a "constitutional " punctilio : so they "appealed to the country" —that is, one appealed to the Duke of Buckingham, another to the Duke of Newcastle, and so on. The consequence is, thatsome of the Premier's ablest assistants—some of the best men—are kept out 'of Parliament, precisely because they are the best men tohe in Parliament ; and the public business is arrested by the will of the Dukes aforesaid, whose interference at elections is annually / forbidden by the House of Commons. How long are these ab- surdities to continue? Sir Robert Peel's veneration for precedent seems to make him willing to submit, though of all our great statesmen he has been most fretted by the nuisance. Any man of equal ability, with less prejudice on that particular head, would make short work with a remedy. One way would be to give the chief Ministers official seats in both Houses ; another would be a second and more searching Reform Bill.

The look turns to the future—to the still veiled "after Easter." What will the Lords do with the Corn Bill ? Nothing certain can be known, but the extent of uncertainty is shown in the con- flict of rumours. At present fears are in the ascendant. We do not altogether share them. The House of Lords is not a revo- lutionary body, is not an assemblage of incendiaries ; and we cannot believe that it will do anything so very "unconstitutional" as to tamper with a money bill—so very indiscreet as to precipi- tate a dissolution and an agitation against "the House of Mischief."

Nor is the struggle even so hopeful for Lords as it might have been two months ago. The long debates in the Commons have familiarized the public mind to free trade as virtually accom- plished; even the farmers, last of all races to receive new lights, know how the truth is, and are beginning to arrange for their own interests under the coming freedom. Public opinion on that point, like mortar which has dried, is firmly set : to revert to Pro- 'on now, would really be to make the change, and the Lords would not be merely obstructors, but reinnovators, if they were to attempt a counter-revolution of that kind. The delay, therefore,

• has not been altogether unfavourable : neither delay nor prompti- tude can revive Protection.