NEWS OF THE WEEK.
THE Reform Bill has progressed a ladle. We have now arrived at the sixteenth clause, amidst interruptions, direct and indirect, of no insignificant kind.
The other business of the week, especially in the Commons, was very miscellaneous. On Monday, we had the Irish Tithes,
a subject fruitful of strife. On Tuesday, there was the Irish Tithes repeated, with an introductory discussion on the merits of the Anatomy Bill, and of a petition from an atheistical gentleman named Webb, presented by Mr. HENRY HUNT; and an appendix on Irish Magistrates and the Waldenses, by Mr.GEORGE ROBERT DAWSON-and Sir HENRY ROBERT INGLIS. On Wednesday, there was no House. On Thursday, there was the General Fast, the Russian Loan, and no Bill. Last night, we had an array of orders of the day aS long as Oxford Street, with a little of the Bill inter-
jected. •
Ministers were within a hairbreadth of being Barked on Thurs- day, both by the Lords and the Commons. It seemed almost im- possible that they should escape the paws of Lord ABERDEEN, and those of Mr.ROTHSCHILD'S Mr. HERMES. The Bishops left them to their fate. These reverend dignitaries made a mighty, palaver when they were accused of a design of tripping up Lord GREY'S heels on the second reading of the Bill. On Thursday, a motion, which if carried must have compelled his resignation, was submitted to the House, and they bolted to a man, the three Re- form Bishops of course excepted. In the Lower House, the Re- formers, by joining the Anti-Reformers in their well-directed attempt, strove to drive Lord GREY to the wall as earnestly as did. the Ecclesiastical Bench on the occasion of the great division.
There cannot be the smallest doubt—first, that the Ministers, in paying the three last instalments of the Russian Loan, stand condemned in law if not in principle; second, that the Duke of WELLINGTON, had he been in power, would have done precisely as they have done ; third, that not one word of truth escaped from the Opposition or the Ministry, in the course of Thursday night, touching the cause of the Cabinet's departure from a plain act of Parliament, or the Tory inculpation of a course which in place they would have been foremost to practise and defend.
The plain - matter of fact, we believe, is this—the Emperor of Russia has continued to be paid, after the legal claim to payment. had ceased, in order to bribe him to his good behaviour. If lie go to war for Holland—whether with LEOPOLD, with Louts, or with our- selves—be loses all. On the strength of the adage, that it is better to flatter the Devil than fight with him, perhaps Ministers are, for the moment, right. For the moment only ; because that desperate faction once ousted, whose presence alone renders the honest oppo- sition of their real friends at all formidable, the payment of interest or principal must equally cease; and NICHOLAS, when he next sharpens his swords against Polish throats, must be content to pay for his D*H:wheNtones.
We could have wished that the ,Reformers had attended.on Thursday more to the real, and less to; the formal nature of. Mr. - Were they not aware,: that by consenting to it, they as-infallibly wrecked -the-Bill as if they had rejected the second reading? and were they, in their zeal for economy—an ex- cellent thing, though, like gold, it may be bought too dear—pre- pared to brave the indignation wi -Nch the nation must have visited those who had sold that jewel of great price for a few paltry pounds ? We know that to call on Mr. Hum: to give a vote which could be interpreted into even a momentary approbation of any expense, is useless. Were he, like hint of Patmos, favoured with a glimpse of the New Jerusalem, instead of kneeling to wor- ship its glories, he would rise to prefer a motion against the waste of capital in their construction. But there are other names in the majority who have not the excuse that is offered by the idiosyn- cracy of the member for Middlesex. Of Mr. PEReEVAL's fasting motion we shall speak more at large in another place.
