NEWS OF THE WEEK.
BUSTLE, bustle !" is the word of command now issued from Downing Street ; and ready is the remnant of the House of Corn-
molts to yield obedience. About live hundred aid fifty " honour-
able gentlemee have decamped, and are now enjoy ing the delight rtf a canvass under the summer sun ; leaving an anxious and indefatigable fraction of the nocturnal Legislature to push through the remaining measuies of the session as fast as they can. All are eager to be off, and in the course of the next week we suppose that little will be left for them to do. The country will have cause to rue the scampeting legislation of the present week, when the blunders that are inevitable in the midst of such hurry come to light in the practical working of the new laws.
Though an immense mass of measures have been disposed of, there are few subjects for discussion, or that require especial no- tire in this part of our paper. Loud JOHN RUSSELL'S bills for amending the Criminal Law have been sent up to the Lords. W hat their fate will be is uncertain; but nobody could blame the Peers for refusing to pass without scrutiny measures of their cha- racter; and time for examination will not be allowed by Ministers. The Imprisonment for Debt Bill went through the Committee of the Commons on Thursday. with perfect ease : the Peers will have to deal with it next week. Mr. ROBINSON'S bill for manufac- turing Foreign Corn in bond was rejected, on Wednesday, though supported by Ministers; the numbers being Magni mit only 52. The fact is, that to relax the operation of the existing tax on food, is quite as difficult as to abolish the duty. Indeed, more so; for the latter proposition excites the sympathies of the suffering masses, as a bold and effectual measure, whilst merely to afford some additional employment for millers, is not an object worth a serious struggle ; and the odium, if any, of rejecting such a bill as Mr. ROBINSON'S, may be safely disregarded by the landed gentlemen. Mr. GROTE has made what we hope will turn out to be a successful attempt to infringe very materially on the Usury Laws. The Bank Charter contains a clause permitting bills of exchange having not more than three months to run to be discounted at a higher rate of interest than five per cent. ; and during the late and present commercial pressure, the advantage of this permission has been extensively felt. It is of course more hazardous todiscount a bill which will not be at maturity for twelve months, than one payable at the end of three months : but the sagacious and experienced gentlemen to whom we aro indebted for the Bank Charter, allowed the broker or banker who discounted the shorter bill—who en- gaged in the less hazardous operation—to reap legally the largest profit. Mr. GROTE'S measure will allow a higher rate of interest than five per cent, to be taken for bills not having more than twelve months to run, and thus put an end to an absurd and injurious regulation. Now this we take to be a practical reform—a thing, for which Mr. GROTE'S constituents, whatever their party feelings may be, must feel obliged to him : perhaps contempt for the Usury Laws, and the habit of evading them, are nowhere so prevalent as in the city of London, the great commercial emporium of the world. Mr. GROTE had one opponent; and, strange to say, that one was Mr. WAKLEY,—a person whose general characteristic is freedom from obsolete projudice, and a desire to liberalize men and things. The Morning Chronicle inti- mates that Mr. Wastmor's cranium is in fault— that a phreuolo- real scrutiny would exhibit the undue development of an organ which compelled the Member for Finsbury to talk nonsense on this subject. Perhaps it is so : in that case, we recommend the cultivation of some counteracting propensity. A small party of Peers have on two occasions this week talked a great deal about the Poor-law. Lord &valet-tore, one would suppose, had got "a bee in his bonnet," from the insane fashion In which he declaims on this subject. He fancies that the Poor- law, horrible in its twofold operation, is grinding the pour and undermining the House cf Lords,—which latter calamity every- body knows would be by far the most dreadful ! But so little attention is paid to the ravings of the gullible Earl, that, as he jocosely observed on Thursday, the House was corneosed exclusively of speakers ; there being only present the Duke or RICHMOND and the Earls of HARDWICRE and RADNOR, who had each delivered speeches in opposition to Lord STANHOPE. A short conversation in the House of Peers, on Monday. illus- trates the manner in which the legislative business of the country has been performed by Ministers and the House of Commons this session. It appared from a statement of Lord BROUGH 4M. that the bill for appointing Irish Commissioners of Bank- ruptcy made the Commissioners removable at the pleasure of the Lord-Lieutenant in one clause, and gave them their offices during good behaviour in another ! Lord Chancellor Comm HAM defended the first clause as unobjectionable, but said nothing about the other. Again, on Wednesday, it was discovered that the Marriage Act Amendment Bill contained a clause that would prevent the Catholics from benefiting by the bill. It was pro- posed to remedy this blunder; but, said Lord Chancellor COTTEN- H AM, in that case there will scarcely be time for the bill to pass before Satiuday, and it must become a law before the first of July. Now this measure had been lingering in the Commons from the 21st of April to the 19th June ; and it was only when just on the eve of passing the Lords, on the 28th of June, that the mistake was discovered. Even the ordinary Money Bills, which have become laws, are not free from material mistakes. On Monday, just after Lord BROUGHAM had exposed the contra- diction in the Irish Bankruptcy Bill, Lord LYNDHURST men- tioned, that in the Monies Exchequer Bill, which had received the Royal assent, he had discovered a blunder which would render it inoperative. The errors above mentioned have been detected— how many more have passed unobserved, it were idle to conjecture
