NEWS OF THE WEEK.
WHEN Parliament assembles on the 3d of February, it will meet no improved accounts of the state of the country. This week has added another to the list of great meetings to declare the ad- vance of embarrassment, if not of ruin, among all classes in the manufacturing-districts. The whole West Riding of York- shire has just made such a declaration. However tedious these reports may be in the detail, from their sameness and the triteness of the subject, as well as from their gloomy character, they merit the profoundest attention as emanating from such wide and important tracts of country. District after district, each com- prehending great counties, has avowed itself unable to cope with the burden that oppresses it. If the reader were to take a blank map of the United Kingdom, and to colour those parts which have thus spoken in one tint—say in the appropriate hue of black— he would find a large portion of the country clothed in the shade of trouble ; and that the most important and wealthy portion. It comprises the iron-district of Western Scotland, with Paisley and other trading places ; the iron-district of Wales; Liverpool and ..Miniehester, and the districts belonging to thenc.in ,IkuiCashire and North Cheshire ; the West Riding of Yorkshire; Derby, :Leicester, -Nottingham, and their surrounding districts. The accounts from this wide region are all alike ; they represent such a state 'of things as, when it is permanent, is called the decay of nations—their retrograde condition. Now these representations cannot be neglected in the ensuing session. If they are denied, proof Must be brought against the accumulated evidence in support of them. If they are admitted, it becomes those who make the admission to say, whether they pronounce the evil to be hopeless, and dare openly to resign the empire to its decline and fall, or whether it is to be remedied. In the last case, if they will not ac- cept the remedies offered, they must produce other remedies of their own. No one will venture to think of prolonging passive neglect.
