NEWS OF THE WEEK.
THE Parliamentary week, up to last night, was occupied with but one subject. On Monday commenced a debate on the interven- tion of this country in the affairs of Spain, which was adjourned from that day to the next, and was not brought to a close till four o'clock on Thursday morning ; when the House of Commons sup- ported the Ministers by a vote of 278 to 242. The majority is quite as large as either party anticipated, and proves that it is useless in the Tories to attempt the overthrow of the MELBOURNE Administration, by means of the PEEL Parliament, on a question of foreign policy. Liberals of all shades may be united against Carlo-Miguelite-Toryism. Mr. ROEBUCK, indeed, refused to vote with Ministers, and left the House after delivering a speech against both parties' and Mr. HARVEY followed Mr. ROEBUCK'S example ; but Sir WILLIAM MOLESWORTH, Mr. GROTE, Mr. LEADER, and other stanch Radicals, remained, and, on the prin- ciple that Whigs are better than Tories, though much worse than they ought to be, resisted what was manifestly a party effort to smooth the way of the Tories to place. The circumstances under which the subject was brought for- ward, prove beyond doubt, that the Oppposition professea sym- pathy with the suffering Legion and the brave Basque people, and anxiety for the national honour, merely as a convenient cover for an assault on office. Sir HENRY HARDINGE moved an address to the King against the renewal of the Order in Council for sus- pending the Foreign Inlistment Act, and against the employment of the Marines in any service not strictly naval, according to the interpretation which Tories find it convenient to give to the phrase " naval cooperation." The proof that the pretence on which this motion was founded is hollow and base, lies within *he compass of a few facts, none of them recondite. The relief of Bilboa was mainly effected by the aid of the British Marines: the instances of insubordination, quoted by Sir HENRY H ARDINGE, bad occurred in the Legion before the meeting of Parliament, and were quite notorious : the suffering endured by the Legion was equally well known ; and the cruelties committed by the Christino Spaniards, and iniputed (falsely, as it turned out) to the officers and men under General EVANS, had become old stories in the public journals. In short, the materials of nearly the whole of Sir HENRY HARDINGE'S opening and inculpatory speech must have been in his hands for some months ; and yet he did not reply to the challenge given in the King's Speech to discuss this subject : his tender heart bled in secret over the sufferings of his fellow Countrymen; his horror at the contamination of their morals, though stilling, foud no vent; his indignation at the idea of "walking into the enemy" and " skivering" them behind ramparts, was smothered ; and, lastly, his high sense of the injury done to the national honour never prompted him to stir in its defence,—until it was decided in Tory councils that the defeat of Evarss before Hernani might be converted into the means of annoying the Whig Ministers, and by possibility help the Opposition to a safer clutch at the seals. Then Sir HENRY HARDINGE was ready to do his master's bidding. Then his corked-up sympathy, indignation, and piety, bounced out in a three-column speech, full of imputations and attacks on ab- sent fellow-soldiers, but free from any thing approaching to a statesmanlike view of the really important question lying under the mass of' calumny and misrepresentation which party-spirit piled upon it. It was proved by the evidence of General SHAW, in a letter read by Mr. °TWAY Cave, that Sir HENRY HARDINGE Lad founded his attacks on General EVANS and the Legion on evidence not trustworthy : and what then was the conduct of Sir HENRY? Instead of doing justice to the absent, and retracting his disproved charges, he delivered a dozen irregular speeches With a view to holster them up. But he miserably failed, and altogether exhibited himself in as pitiable a light as the most vindictive of those whom he assailed in theirlabsence could wish to see him placed in. Sir ROBERT PEEL, too, must fare little better in the public opi- nion than Sir HENRY HARDINGE. At the commencement of the session, when victory was on the side of the Queen of Spain, and public sympathy, right or wrong, ran in favour of the PALMER- STON policy, Sir ROBERT PEEL sought to share in the popularity which the Government was reaping; and he pompously avowed his admiration of the gallantry of our countrymen in Spain, and his truly English feeling of pride and delight at their success. A reverse came—something might be made of it ; and then the tone of the Tory leader was changed, and he became the worthy coadjutor of Sir HENRY HARDINGE in defaming the character and conduct of " my gallant countrymen." This is characteristic of the man ; to whose nature and temperament generosity is a stranger, and who when he affects to be especially candid is al- ways hypocritical and false. The manner and spirit in which the Tories conducted the de- bate was as bad as possible, and the ground they chose was so narrow that it seemed scarcely worth the trouble of defence. They admitted that the Quadruple Treaty was binding and that themselves, if in power, would faithfully execute it : they only demurred to the mode of its execution by the present Government, whom they charged with doing more than it required. Thus the principle of interference or non-interference was laid aside and all that was said against interference by the Tories in the course of the debate was irrelevant to the position they had taken up. Whether, according to the old practice of the British and other nations, our fellow countrymen should be allowed to inlist in the service of a foreign power—and whether the Marines should be marched two, three, or five miles from the coast—were the questions on which the Tories joined issue with Ministers, and de- clared their readiness to go to the country. Now we suspect that the " country " would give this brief reply—" Let English- men go where they like—to Spain or elsewhere; and as for the Quadruple Treaty, let its provisions be honourably and liberally fulfilled, even at the risk of a somewhat long march for the Marines:. The Tories, pledged to fulfil the stipulations of the Quadruple Treaty, have no case for the country. The policy, however, of our original participation in the Qua- druple Treaty, is a different and more doubtful question. It is idle to talk about non-interference having been the policy of Britain in former times. England carries the load of an immense debt incurred in meddling with the internal affairs of the Con- tinental nations. Mr. Fox and other statesmen may have pro- tested against such waste of national treasures ; but it is indis- putable that English Kings and Ministers of all parties, from the Norman Conquest to the present day, have interfered in the dis- putes of foreign countries. It is therefore no especial reproach against the present Ministers that they have interfered in the affairs of Spain; and moreover, it must be recollected that the sympathies of the people went with them, and that the Liberal Press and Liberal Members of Parliament cheered them on Doubtless, the recollection of their former encouragement, and repeatedly expressed approbation of the foreign policy of the Government, had weight with the Radicals who gave Ministers their majority on Thursday morning. Continued approval of that policy was not, however, implied by the Radical votes on Thursday. The failure of the assist- ance given by England to put down the insurrection in Spain, has opened the eyes of many who originally applauded ins tervention. The chief cause of failure has, probably, been the treachery of Louis Plume: who has deceived Lord PALMER- sToN and betrayed the Queen of Spain. But be this as it may, the fact of failure is beyond doubt, and the probability that our continued interference will be productive of at least as much mis- chief as benefit to the cause of the Queen and of constitutional freedom, amounts almost to a certainty. The conclusion seems to follow, that as soon as we can honourably get free of our en- gagements, that course should be taken : the difficulty is, how are we to get free ? and this question implies, that the Quadruple Treaty is condemned by experience. We have already characterized the speeches of Sir HENRY HARDINGE and Sir ROBERT PEEL, the most noticeable of those delivered by the Opposition Members. On the Government side of the House there were several clever speeches, but only one which took a comprehensive view of the subject, and displayed superior ability ; and that one was Lord PALMERSTON's. We have not been in the habit of giving our Foreign Secretary credit for the talent he exhibited on that occasion. His exposure of the false pretences of the Opposition, was effective and cutting ; his appeals to the more generous feelings of his audience and of the country on behalf of an ally in distress, bespoke no common powers of oratory ; he made a skilful use of the precedents which favoured his side of the question ; his justification of t40.!..fifst,..„ ciple and the mode of interference he had adopted, irt,kot: seundit, was plausible ; and his retroseect of the general course of his policy as Foreign Secretary, though sufficiently self-complacent, was well worked up, and generally fek tote just. It isihis peat merit that he entered office lit a time when, according to Lord Asneulerose if he hall an "angel from Heaven to write his despatches he could not prevent a general war in six months; and yet, with unimportant exceptions, the peace has been preserved for, sot years.
Lord PALMERSTON'S speech ought, perhaps, to have been de- livered earlier in the debate. If he had risen immediately after Sir HENRY HARDINGE sat down, much irrelevant talk would have been spared, and much precious time saved. The House had a right to know what defence the Foreign Secretary had in store, and what course he intended to take. On these points they were left in ignorance till about midnight on Wednesday. We can easily imagine Lord PALMERSTON'S excuse : he will say, that if he bad replied to HARDINGE, the Ministerial strength would have been exhausted, as not one of his colleagues could give him effi- cient assistance, and he bad to rely upon himself alone. The apology may be valid ; but then, it gives a sorry account of the capacity, industry, and information of his colleagues in the Cabinet.
The foreign policy debate pushed the other business of the week out of its place. The Irish Poor-law, the Canada Resolu- tions, the Church-rates Bill, and Mr. WILLIAMS'S motion for a repeal of the Septennial Act, were all deferred. Mr. WI LLIAMS, backed by Mr. TENNYSON EVEYNCOURT, made an effort to obtain precedence for his motion on Tuesday, as it stood first on the list of notices for that day ; but Lord JOHN RUSSELL ruled that an adjourned debate ought to be resumed in preference to other business, and threatened Mr. WILLIAMS with his majority if he persevered in the intention to force on his motion. It was ulti-
mately arranged, that on the 8th of May Mr. WILLIAMS should have precedence; which, we suppose, is equivalent to a post- ponement of the Budget, previously fixed for the 8th. On Thursday the wearied Members refused to sit ; so the notices of motions for that day were "dropped." The whole business of the session is thus thrown into disorder; and the Vote-paper is nearly useless as a record of future arrange- ments. This is the consequence of long speeches about nothing. Last week, by an adjournment of the debate on the Irish Muni- cipal Bill, Mr. Huma's motion for Household Suffrage was jockied off; this week the Septennial Act motion is got rid of in the same way : yet the Downing Street journalists have the assurance to charge the delay and disorder of public business on the Radi- cals ! Let them name a single Radical measure the discussion of which has occupied more than one night. No—the Ministers alone, or they mainly and their friends the "gentlemen opposite" assisting, are to blame for the backward state of the sessional busi- ness.
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