NEWS OF THE WEEK.
A PROCLAMATION by the Queen summons her Parliament to meet on Tuesday the 19th of January next, "for the despatch of divers urgent and important affairs, —a phrase which this year has much more than the common formal significancy: the affairs which Parliament meets to transact are so urgent that they will scarcely wait for the meeting, wherefore Parliament is summoned at the earliest period marked by recent custom ; and they are so important that they May be said to involve the peace and inte- grity of the empire. - Our Postscript on Saturday contained an announcement of a great scheme for the redemption of Ireland, said to be under the consideration of Ministers : it has not been confirmed, still less contradicted. The professedly Ministerial journals seem to be as puzzled as any. One put forth, on Monday, a rewriting of the announcement in the vague form of an editorial prescription, with indefinite hints that "probably" Ministers would attend to this or noi c.verlook that, and so on' and another journal repeated the manceuvre on Wednesday. Inquiry perhaps had not enabled either of those semi-official followers to make an authorized state- ment, yet had convinced them that there was "something in it "; so, not to be found wanting in any event, they record statements which may fit either issue : if nothing come of the scheme, these new versions of it are to be held for mere editorial recom- mendations; if it be brought to bear, then these statements are to be regarded as programmes, like the anticipative versions of the Queen Speech. There are, however, collateral evidences that there is something in it. Two of the points are involved in Mr. Trevelyan's letter to the Under-Secretary for Ireland, announcing that Government will seek from the Legislature increased facilities for raising money upon land, especially by encouraging the transfer of entailed estates ; and that it will also claim a power to take possession of land in satisfaction of unpaid instalments due to Government. We have heard of circumstances also which tend to confirm the rumour in one or two other particulars. If a conjecture might be hazarded, we should say, that no com- prehensive scheme of redemption has yet been determined upon, U a whole ; that the several parts of such a scheme have been under consideration, and have been talked about ; that some san- guine person has heard the talk, and has, hastily but perhaps not untruly, assumed that "Lord John will do it all" ; and thin if the most enlightened counsels prevail over the commonplace dread of "extremes" and of trust in routine, all will be moulded into a whole, and promulgated to Parliament as a consentaneous scheme : but we incline to doubt whether such a step is not still matter of speculation even in the highest quarters.
