21 MAY 1842, Page 1

NEWS OF THE WEEK.

A LONGER recess than usual at Whitsuntide gives a little breathing- time to take a review of the progress of Parliamentary business since Easter. We have a very different account to give from that when the Corn-importation had made but little way in Committee and the Income-tax was a bodiless project. The interval has been pregnant with consequences in the House of Commons ; for though the measures passed or discussed are not many, they are, like the short list of the dramatis personae of a Greek tragedy, each suffi- cient to give force and character to the drama. The Corn- importation Bill is law. Its merits have not yet, indeed, been tested by dearth or the proffered importation of abundant foreign corn, nor will they in all probability be so till next winter ; and no one expects the excessive evils of the old Corn-law to be renewed, or any very extraordinary advantages to be intro- duced. The Income-tax Bill has made such progress in the House of Commons that it now merely awaits the fiat of that House to be -sent up to the Peers, to receive Lord MELBOURNE'S careless reprobation, Lord BROUGHAM'S elaborate strictures, the sanction of the House, and the Royal assent. The Tariff has come under actual discussion, and its principle may be considered to have been adopted by the Commons. 111r. BARING has given earnest of much deliberation, or at least discussion, on Colonial medlars and dried fruits, and others of the more momentous items ; but the probability is, that some few of the details— few, that is, in comparison to the whole number—will be laboriously canvassed, and that the. rest will be hastily hurried over. The Tory Government have avowed their adhesion, with some discreet but slight qualifications, to the Whig Poor-law ; and Sir JAMES GRAHAM has introduced a bill to continue the Commission, of which he is the unflinching champion. The Anti-Poor-law Tory journals have acquired too much momentum in their headlong course to stop abruptly ; and as they must go on, they have per- force left the Minister, and so are betrayed into being decidedly Anti-Ministerial on that head : they are like the trooper who rode an old charger borrowed from the enemy, and was carried into their ranks in his own despite. Finally, the broad question of electoral corruption--the foremost question of the day which relates to the constitution of Parliament—has been brought before the Legisla- ture and the public, by. Mr. ROEBUCK'S direct examination of in- dividual Members, his Committee of inquiry sanctioned by the Premier, and measures to promote investigation and check bribery, by himself, Lord JOHN RUSSELL, and Lord BROUGHAM. Nor will it soon be forgotten that the Premier, the recognized leader of the Conservative party, has delivered a lecture in favour of Free Trade in his place in Parliament ; thus signifying that the only division of the body politic that stood out against Free Trade can no longer make its resistance good. The two months have seen a very de- cided advance in legislation on, broad grounds, and in the progress of that public opinion which, as having the concurrence of all par- ties in the state, may be called the formally acknowledged national opinion ; opinion settled and removed from the category of specu- lation, to be received henceforth as admitted in argument, the basis whence farther speculation starts.