13 MARCH 1847, Page 1

NEWS OF THE WEEK.

THE first step has been taken towards extending the Property and Income tax to Ireland ; but the enjoyers of property and income in that country have escaped for the present with a lecture. The occasion was the Committee of the Commons on the bill for making pecuniary advances to improve landed estates. By way of amendment, Mr. Roebuck moved a resolution declaring that if such advances were made to the Irish landlords, the Income- tax should be extended to them ; a proposition obviously enough open to the objections made by Lord John Russell and Sir Robert Peel, as to form and time. The manner in which the objections were advanced indicates very clearly that the extension of the tax to Ireland is only a matter of time, and that even now it is withheld rather on the score of sentiment than of strict reason ; for, observe, it is to be a tax on the property, not the poverty of Ireland. Mr. Roebuck's proposal was negatived, of course ; but there was a general feeling in the House that it had served as the op- portunity for uttering some truths which it was very desirable to have enunciated. A deep impression was produced by the story of the gentleman who keeps a pack of seventy dogs, fed with milk and meal amid the starving people, near Mallow. That such cases are not purely exceptional—Mon- strous anomalies—is proved by the fact that the Irish Members rise in their places, not to denounce them, but to apologize for them. This pamperer of dogs, we are told, is not a landowner in the district, nor is he 8Q. rich as people suppose : though rich enough to pamper dogs,^he cannot afford much for human beings. Another pamperer of dogs has property elsewhere, and gives to the poor near that property : at Mallow, where his dogs are the envy of the people, he does not give, because he is not under the quasi-technical obligation of having property in the place. Irish gentlemen de not see that such excuses imply a sanction of con- duct which general execration would render impossible in Eng- land. The Irish gentlemen think it hard that the conduct of private persons should be publicly exposed. It is, no doubt, quite legal—a man may do what he likes with his own • but it the common feelings of humanity will not make men withhold from brutes what is needed to save_human life, public opinion is the proper corrective and there is no good reason why public opi- nion should not be directed to the subject through Parliament.

Statements made by Lord Brougham in the other House have caused no less disgust. It appears that, though some landlords and persons of property have not been niggardly, many of the class have disgraced themselves by contributing the paltriest pittances in aid of local charities-2d. in the pound ! Others have used the occasion for a systematic ejeetmentof the tenantry, as if with the deliberate intention of reducing the "surplus po- pulation." It is difficult to account for such conduct except by inferring that a barbarian disregard of life pervades all classes— that the same indifference to human life which makes the "broth of a boy" challenge a beating or makes the Ribandman inflict it, leaves the landowner without motive to save life by succour, or to prevent its extinction by waiving his legal right at a period of national calamity. We have a saying in England, that charity begins at home—and, self-sarcastically, we add, ends there : the Irish, it seems, think that charity is to begin in England—and end there : cruelty begins in Ireland—soon to end there, let us hope. The general deductions to be drawn from the debates, conversa- tions, and news of the week, are appalling. We believe that the full extent of the calamity has not yet been meted ; the despair— the mortality—the pestilence—the clouds of destitution and dis- ease which may yet be wafted like noxious mists across St. George's Channel. We believe that the calamity is not to be limited to this year : even a good harvest will not repair all the consequences of the infliction—will not restore the ruin caused by the hiatus in the national supply of subsistence • and if there be not a return of the dearth next year, there will be the after- birth of misery to be assuaged and controlled. England has more to do for Ireland—the penalty of long misdeeds against Ireland ; and the work of next year will be aggravated, not only by the neglect of recent years to prepare any adequate remedies, but by the continued neglect of this year. What have Ministers in preparation, now, to supersede the not improbable necessity of employing half a million of people on eleemosynary public works, or of feeding them without work, in February next Ministers have been engaged in throwing discredit on their most imposing measure—the modified system of transportation. Lord Stanley and other Peers, expressing alarm at the proposed mode of carrying out the reform, have elicited a very curious element in the project. In order to avoid 'coming fairly before Parliament, Ministers, it seems, leave unaltered the law author- izing sentence of transportation, but suspend it by a wholesale exercise of the "prerogative of mercy "—upon three or four thousand criminals annually. A constituent part of the law of the land is to hang upon the breath of the Secretary of State for the time being ! By way of reconciling the objectors to that expedient, Lord Grey endeavoured to persuade them that the measure, after all, was not nearly so important as might be sup- posed ; and he was very successful in that ingenious resort to the cry of" stinking fish." But we do not see that the excuse in any degree exonerates Ministers from the responsibility to Parliament. If the measure is substantial and effectual, it is an innovation on the criminal law so sweeping that it ought not to be attempted with- out the concurrence of Parliament : if it is an ineffectual, and therefore a bad measure, Parliamentary revision is not less need- ful. What is the object of the evasive course ? Either it is in- tended to pass some fraud upon the country—something that would amount to a legislative swindle ; or, if the measure is really well-meant, and useful in its object—which we believe—then the evasion is a confession that Ministers dare not avow their real policy or stand by their best measures in Parliament. Either the fraud or the cowardice, as the case may be, is extraordinary. But Parliament will not suffer such evasion : if the responsible Ministers endeavour to persist in it by avoiding the usual course of bringing in a bill, there can be _little doubt that Parliament will reach them in some other way. Lord John Russell hinted, last week, in the Cracow debate, at some very strong notions which he has as to the limitation of Parliamentary rights ; but of all encroachments on the province of the Legislature, this wholesale alteration of the criminal statute-law by the Executive is the most flagrant within our memory. Although so bold in defrauding the law, Ministers will not face a much modester task openly. Mr. Ewalt moved to abolish capital punishment. The debate was destitute of novelty, and was resultless. Capital punishment will remain on the statute- book until the investigation into the nature of corrective disci- pline, which has become inevitable, shall supply the public with better lights. Sir George Grey met the proposal by two argu- ments, remarkable for their staleness and their absence of logical force. He allows that the mitigation of the penal code has been successful in its results; but as murder is a very important crime, he cannot give up the old punishment for that crime. Moreover, the public feeling is so excited by murder, that he will not be in- strumental in withholding the satisfaction of revenge. Candid! Mr. Milner Gibson has been redeeming an old gage, by establish- ing a mode of collecting agricultural statistics through the Regis- trar-General's Office. Some sneers were cast upon the arrangement, and there was an allusion to parish-officers as fitter instruments. Parish-officers are a very heterogeneous and unorganized class, often very apt at defeatina•, by perverseness or stupidity, any thing intrusted to their charge. The Registrar-General's Office is the best machinery for the purposes of registration. If the returns to be collected in the first instance are of a very element- ary kind, they may be made more complete as experience suggests the mode of doing so without subjecting them to error. btatis- tical information had better be meagre than incorrect.

The Cracow debate has been continued for another night, and again it stands adjourned. The notable features of this second instalment were these. Sir William Molesworth raised a new question as to the faith of Great Britain in paying the interest on the Russian-Dutch loan : if she refuse, she ought to return the colonies ceded by Holland, which formed part of the Dutch

consideration in the arrangement. Lord George Bentinck roundly declared that there had been no violation of the treaty of Vienna ; and thanked the Three Powers,—yes, thanked them, seriatim et nominatim —for favours bestowed on Cracow ; whereat the House of Commons laughed consumedly. And Sir Robert Peel gave to Ministers his unqualified support. With these fur- ther lights, the House recurs to the question next week.