NEWS OF THE WEEK.
and last night there was " no House '' at all. Not that the busi- ness is nearly completed ; far from it—the arrear is at least as great as usual. But it is dreary and unthankful work to attend, night after night, to oppose Tory measures brought forward by ow: Whig Ministers. The Peers agreed to the second reading of the Irish Tithe Bill last night ; but the Duke of WELLINGTON intimated that the arrangement which he should propose in Committee would swal- low up all the revenues of the Church, and leave no surplus for the education of the people.
The Established Church Bill, concocted by the Bishop of LONDON for his own ambitious purposes, has been the subject of angry debate in the House of Commons. Lord JOHN RUSSELL was proof against all the warning given him by the Radicals; and, relying on the aid of PEEL and the place-hunting Tories, (for the honest bigots of the
INGLIS section opposed him,) persisted in forcing on the third reading on Tuesday. But though the Ministerial leader, backed by a majority, may do much, he cannot ride rough-shod over de-
termined men and come 'off scatheless. HUME, BULLER, DUN- COMBE, and LENNARD, with Mr. BUXTON as the head of one party in the Church, and Sir ROBERT INGLIS of the other, suc- ceeded so far as to adjourn 'the decision to last night ; when, behold ! all the efforts of the Treasury could not bring forty Members together at four o'clock, and busy Friday passed as a dies non.
The bill for appointing Trustees to Municipal Charities under- went discussion on Tuesday, on the motion for agreeing to the re- port. Ministers had doctored this bill in the hope of disarming opposition. They proposed to give each burgess the right of voting for half the number of Trustees; thus conferring on the political minority in most of the boroughs the power to elect the same number as the majority. This, however, is counteracted, in effect, by giving the casting-vote to the Mayor, who is generally
a determined partisan. The Tories were not to be duped by so simple a manoeuvre : they divided the House against the bill, and were defeated by 133 to 88 ; but were consoled, no doubt, by the reflection that their friends the Lords would despatch this measure, to keep company with a score of other Ministerial bant- lings, doomed, or to be doomed, to merciless suffocation.
The "farmers fiiends" cut a paltry figure on Thursday. The Agricultural Committee reported the evidence given before them without a word of comment. It appeared that even their " great
gun" Lord CHANDOS had not fired a shot. The fact is, (and the readers of the Spectator must have been prepared for such a re- sult,) that the case of the grumbling landowners, who pant for war prices after twenty years of peace, completely broke down. Twenty-four members of the Committee out of thirty, represented ,gricultural counties; yet, when the question was put, whether any specific for agricultural distress should be recommended to Parlia-
ment, not a soul had a word to say. Alas for the farmers, if they rely on the wisdom or ingenuity of such " friendsr They cannot
have a depreciation of the currency ; they must submit to the Malt-tax. What is to be done ? We cannot offer them better advice, than that tendered by the Chairman, Mr. SHAW LEFEVRE ; whose report the Committee, unanimous it would seem on this point alone, decided not to accept. Mr.LEFEVRE would have told
the farmers, not to look to the Corn-laws for the ability to pay exorbitant rents; but to make (though here lies the difficulty) fair bargains with their landlords, and instead of sticking, clod- hopper-like, to the ancient methods of thrashing, draining, and ploughing, to adopt modern improvements, which, in spite of low prices and high rents, hare procured to intelligent agricul-
turists a reasonable share of prosperity. On this question of agri- cultural distress, Lord JOHN RUSSELL and Sir ROBERT PEEL cordially agreed; and it is rather amusing to observe the mutual . [LATEST Eamox, chuckling of the Minister in esse and the Minister in posse on the discomfiture of a party equally annoying to every Cabinet. Mr. CUNDY, engineer of the unsuccessful Brighton Railway, was brought, to the bar of the House of Commons on Monday, charged with the high crime and mislemeanour of imputing cor- rupt motives to Sir CHARLES BURRELL, in voting for the " Stephenson Line" instead of the " Cundy Line." Notwithstand- ing the rather unpleasant predicament in which he stood, CUNDY seemed self-satisfied and secure. He was probably in possession of too many secrets to have cause for alarm. He denied that he had mentioned the corruption of Sir CHARLES BURRELL, except as a rumour, and then only in reply to a question of Mr. BENETT in a private conversation. If this is true, Mr. BENETT has been very shabby : lie had no right to put such "leading questions," and then report the answers to Sir CHARLES BURRELL. Mr. BENETT was not present to explain this part of his conduct. CUNDY was asked if lie believed the reports of bribery he had mentioned ? He cautiously replied, that he could not pronounce upon the truth of the rumours ; but if the House would appoint a Committee of inquiry, he would give evidence on that point. Members were too prudent to press the question; and CUNDY was dismissed without reproof. Sir CHARLES BURRELL was magnilo- quent on this occasion : he protested that "life would not be bear- able " if Members of Parliament were to be subjected to such im- putations as he laboured under. But we do not find that Sir CHARLES BURRELL denied the truth of the statement which gave rise to the complaint. It appears that he, a member of the Brighton Railway Committee, has agreed to sell land whose value would be greatly augmented if STEPHENSON'S line were selected, and that he supported STEPHENSON'S line. Is this denied ? If not, Sir CHARLES BURRELL has hardly a right to be surprised or offended at the existence of rumours injurious to his character. Instead of vapouring about life not being bearable, he should avoid placing himself in situations which hold out temptation to "job" his vote. His repute in politics is that of a trimmer—how is the world to know that in money matters he is pure beyond other men ?
Mr. SPRING RICE has conceded the " die !" Who now can say that we have not a Liberal Ministry ? At some future period not yet fixed, the names of the several newspapers will be imprinted on the stamp, and thus fraudulent statements of circulation will be prevented. This simple arrangement, which nobody dared to oppose, was wrung:from the Chancellor of the Exchequer by much asking, and is now part of the Stamp-duties Bill. The reduction of the Newspaper-duty to a penny is to commence on the 1st of September, supposing the Peers to be compliant ; of which, by the way, we have never been altogether so confident as some of our contemporaries. If they are consistent, the Lords will reject the bill; for is it not calculated to cheapen political know- ledge, the pregnant source of mischief to Toryism?
