NEWS OF THE WEEK.
The objection made by Mr. Thomas Duncombe to the Irish Constabulary Bill raised a totally separate question. The bill removes a limit now set upon the number of the constables which the Lord-Lieutenant can appoint to any particular district pro- claimed to be disturbed ; and it also lays the expense of the force upon the Consolidated Fund. Objections, no doubt, can be found to both enactments. The mode of defraying the cost removes such check both upon needless outlay and upon local disorder as would result from a local mode of payment : but the case of Ire- land is anomalous ; she is a very poor country, and her mere poverty would starve the machinery of good government : on the ether hand, England, rich and powerful, appoints the Ministers who are responsible for governing Ireland, and it is England's interest that peace should be kept in the neighbouring island. There is therefore much to be said for throwing the cost on the general fund. The " principle" of placing a quasi-military force at the Lord-Lieutenant's disposal is not in issue when the ques- tion concerns only the numbers of the force : the circumstances demand that a large discretion should be reposed in the Governor of Ireland ; and if his discretion is to be controlled, it is rather in respect of his general conduct than in the efficiency of his ma- elnnery.
Lord John Russell has explained his scheme for meeting the second year of failure in the Irish potato crop. It promises to be judicious and effectual. It is assumed that the trade in maize the late Government began will be continued by the ordi- nary operations of commerce ; and therefore the Executive relin- quishes the task which it performed so opportunely last year, of actually providing supplies of that grain. Mr. Labouchere, the Irish Secretary, does injustice to his own honest intelligence when he talks as if the late Ministers had committed some fault in meddling with trade. The altered plan is no doubt for the better ; but it is possible precisely because the late Ministers interfered so effectually as to establish a totally new trade in the space of a few months, yet so discreetly as to make the withdrawal of all nursing aid as easy as it is. But the Irish people will need means to buy the maize : that is to be supplied in the shape of wages to bepaid for employment on public works. In order to wean Ireland from too great reliance on English assistance, and to check local abuses, the cost is to be repaid, gradually, by a tax imposed upon the land, after the manner of a poor-rate. Extremely poor districts, however, are, to have special advances of money not chargeable on the local fund. The proposal met with general approbation.
The acts of this week go far to conquer the " difficulty" which
Ireland constitutes in the administration of the empire. The Premier cannot fail to observe that his success thus far is exactly proportionate to his singlemindedness, his comprehensiveness of view, and his courage in grappling with the hydra difficulty as it opposes each threatening head to his course. A. basis has been laid for general railway legislation next session. Mr. Morrison moved some resolutions, asserting the ex- pediency of appointing a special executive department in lien of the present Railway Board, and suggesting divers functions to be fulfilled by the new Board; but his programme was far from feet, and all but the first assertion was withdrawn. Next J';', the Chancellor of the Exchequer introduced a bill for establishing a Board, to supersede the Railway department of the Board of Trade ; compared with which it promises to be a great improve- ment.
The House of Commons, at the instance of Mr. Hume and Mr. Monckton Milnes, has followed the Lords in having a say about the occupation of Cracow ; but with a more positive result, for Lord Palmerston's speech is a manifesto. He has declared the treaty of Vienna to have been violated ; he has expressed in mea- sured but forcible terms his detestation of the acts imputed to the local government of Gallicia ; and he has opportunely reminded Austria, that if the treaty of Vienna be violated on the Vistula, it may not hold good on the Rhine and the Po. Austria will feel the force of that warning. Intimations put forth by other speakers in the debate are of more doubtful value. We cannot perceive any useful purpose in holding out a prospect that the kingdom of Poland can be restored to its old position on the map of Europe. That nation has been too effectually dismembered to be reconsti- tuted as a substantive whole. By the dismemberment, it has been debarred from partaking in the progress of the age ; and it is of necessity still behind those countries by whose aid alone it
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could have hoped to retrieve its original posits . Were it possible to collect the scattered limbs of Poland, Frai ce and England would never consent to reestablish her as she wa , with her feudal system and villenage ; and we have yet to learn that, inde- pendent, she could be any other. Nor, were it possible to set her up again, is itlikely that she could maintain an independent exist- ence between her three dangerous "protectors." The;separate existence even of her poor remains invites aggression. Austria's rule is illustrated by the events of Gallicia. Russia is eager to eat up all she can. Prussia has been the mildest of the slave's three mistresses. The destiny of Prussia, backward as it may be in English eyes, as compared with that of Poland is the extreme of modern advancement. These obvious facts point to the true policy for the friends of Poland. If opportunity should arise, it would best serve her welfare to bind her to the happier destiny of Prussia by actual annexation. Merge Poland in Prussia, or at least in Germany, and she must participate in that advance- ment which Austria will soon prove powerless to obstruct. The gemini Bentinck and Disraeli have been busy at their ex- alted employment of venting spite against Sir Robert Peel, by hunting out bygone faults in his administration. One of their acts, indeed, was of a better kind, though still subsidiary. In order to their main object, they must acquire some political importance ; one mode of doing that is to be the tribunes for grievance-mongers ; and in that capacity they have appeared as patrons for certain Liverpool merchants. Spain has imposed va- rious differential duties and port-duties on ships entering Cuba, to the disadvantage of English vessels : Lord George and his double-goer contend that those imposts have continued in default of fiscal retaliations by this country ; and they thus aim a side- blow at Sir Robert Peel's free trade. Mr. Milner Gibson ap- pears to us to dispose of those representations, by calling to mind the fact that England herself set the example of vicious distinc- tions. She has now reversed the example ; but time has not yet elapsed for all other countries to imitate her altered course; though the fidelity with which they have followed her hitherto tends to strengthen the belief that they will still profit by her lead.
Lord George has discovered that a Mr. Gorton, who was once convicted of defrauding the Excise, had been appointed by the late Ministers to the commission of the peace in Lancashire. It appears that the charge against Mr. Gorton was not at all clearly made out; lie denies it, and imputes the grounds for it to the blundering of a drunken exciseman ; his conviction was a tech- nical form ; and at all events it happened a long while ago. His actual appointment to the Magistracy was a personal over- sight on the part of Lord Granville Somerset ; who did not find out his mistake till just as he was leaving office. Originally to pass Mr. Gorton by, might have been better ; but to deprive him, after appointment, was a much harsher and more questionable act ; the necessity of which Lord Granville was perforce obliged
to leave to the judgment of his successor. The appointment was a mistake ; but it has.no serious results.
In another case, Lord Gborke thoUght that he had dug up-a treasure of incriminatorEammatter. The facts stated in the bill of indictment are thecae.- e time ago, -Lord Chancellor Lynd- hurst conferred the living of Nocton on a friend of Lord Ripon's ; and to requite that good turn, Lord Ripon aids Lord Lynd- hurst in a "job " to benefit the Lord Chancellor's principal secre- tary. It is the custom for the Judges in India to give long notice of their resignation ; and accordingly, in February last, Sir Henry Roper, head of the Supreme Court in Bombay, wrote that he would resign on the 2d of November next. On that day he would -have completed seven years' service, which would entitle him to . a retiring allowance of 1,0001. a year ; five years' service only gives 7001. When the late Ministers were about to retire, Lord - Lyndhurst wished to provide for his secretary, Mr. Perry : for that purpose, Sir Henry was abruptly superseded ; Mr. David Pollock, Commissioner of the Insolvent Court in London, was ap- pointed Judge of the Bombay Court ; Mr. Charles Phillips, Com- missioner of Bankruptcy at Liverpool, was appointed to suc- ceed Mr. Pollock ; and Mr. Perry was put into the vacancy at Liverpool. One efect of this sudden shifting is, that all the ju- dicial acts of Sir Henry Roper in the interval between the date of the patent appointing his successor and his actual retirement have been invalidated. The present Ministers were charged with screening their predecessors, by bringing in a bill to legalize the invalidated proceedings in the Bombay Court. Such was Lord George's indictment on Tuesday. Next day, however, he made an important retractation. He found by the Clergy List, that the living of Nocton was not in the patronage of the Lord Chancellor ; and he expressed the most vehement contrition for his blunder.
Wretched youth !—" impar congressus Achilli !" On the third day, Thursday, Lord Lyndhurst entered the field, bent on mis- chief. He dashed aside both accusation and retractation, with equal contempt. Not a particle of the charge against him re- mains. The living of Norton is in his gift ; but the appointment was made in accordance with a time-honoured custom : the living is in the -very centre of an estate inherited by Lady Ripon, to whose family it belonged—it is quite a family chaplaincy ; by some accident it lapsed to the Crown, but the courtesy of Go- vernment has uniformly accepted the recommendation of the owner of the estate. The enlargement of the church, the school, the house for a master and mistress, and their salaries, have all depended on Lord Ripon's generous purse. Precedent and good taste equally justified Lord Lyndhurst's act. As to the Bombay Judgeship, the appointment was entirely the separate and independent act of Lord Ripon as head of the Board of Con- trol. On hearing of Sir Henry Roper's resignation, Lord Ripon sent to his colleague, the highest authority in the law, to ascer- tain who would be a fit successor; Lord Lyndhurst returned a pretty numerous list of qualified candidates for office in India, without any recommendation ; Mr. Pollock was selected ; and his appointment was made out according to the precedent which has governed the appointment of all his predecessors. The le- galizing bill applies to all former cases as well as to the present. With Mr. Charles Phillips's transfer to London, at a pecuniary loss, Lord Lyndhurst had scarcely anything to do. For Mr. Perry's appointment to Liverpool he avowed full responsibility; he found his justification in that gentleman's well-known and 'high qualifications. Having explained his own conduct, Lord -Lyndhurst grasped his assailant, and lashed him with cutting stripes ; denouncing his malevolence and paltry constructions ; -pronouncing " this man "—a presumptuous pretender to lead the 'councils of a nation or a party—to be " silly, weak, and low " ; and imputing his conduct to " early associations and habits "I None of Lord George's Protectionist friends ventured to say a word. As a personal exoneration Lord Lyndhurst's statement was com- plete; as a counter-charge, crushing. There has been no " job- bing" ; and the suspicion of it was the child of sordid thoughts. But Lord Lyndhurst furnished no vindication of the official prac- tice. When one obtains a glimpse of the department routine, working in detail, it seems to have been no better, if it was no worse, under the late Government than under any other. There was the usual amount of dawdling, bungling, and negligence. Had it been otherwise, there would have been no need now for an act of Parliament to legalize an ordinary proceeding.
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