NEWS OF THE WEEK.
Warrsurrrno follows, as usual, at no great distance after Easter; but the interral has sufficed to reverse the aspect of affairs in Par- liament. If we congratulated ourselves upon the progress of work done at that earlier season, the congratulation was premature ; for, after all, the great proportion of important bills are still hanging in their earlier stages, and some of the most important measures which were conspicuous in the account have been withdrawn. Much of the early work has been cancelled. The first business of this week was to proceed with that labour of undoing, by withdrawing at the second reading the bills to pre- vent, by chastisement, bribery in the boroughs of Canterbury, Hull, Cambridge, Maldon, and Barnstaple ; partly on the ground that the individual electors who would have been disfranchised had given evidence against themselves under a supposed protection from more than the penal consequences, and partly because the entire class of measures to which these belong necessarily stand over till next session. There was no division of opinion as to the immediate question of withdrawing the five bills ; Sir Frederick Thesiger concurring with the Attorney-General in that step. Not the dap wa4ktheredgng, 'disturbing, acrimonious debate, cal- culated to bteed ranklings whieh may fartlier interrupt business. Mr. Disraeli has been losing ground this session, through the re- finements on which he has ventured in attempting the novel part of magnanimous forbearance towards political opponents, and through the prosy speeches in which he set forth his balancing theories. But here was an opportunity for him to return to his first successful manner, and to display his "mastery of invective." On the retraetation of the Government Bills, he attacked the Go- vernment for its defeats, voluntary or compulsory; and Lord John Russell for deserting his colleagues to take part with the Coalition Ministry, under the leader whom he had denounced as a "conniver with foreign conspirators." Lord John Russell's reply, and the tes- timony of his former colleagues, showed, that in accepting office he acted by their advice ; that he has retained their confidence ; and that he is on terms of thorough understanding as much with them as he always has been personally with Lord Aberdeen, whom he had never disparaged on any ground whatever. The defence sti- mulated a renewal of the attack, and the battle of words raged for several hours ; rousing all the passion for such gladiatorial contests which gentlemen of the House of Commons share with the vulgar
crowd in the streets that gathers round two little boys fighting. Mr. John Bright gleefully betrayed the pleasure that he took in
this return of " lively " debating; and, taking a surreptitious holi- day, the House set in for a feast of fisticuffs, thus contriving to spend the greater part of a long night over four or five unopposed motions.
The waste of time on Monday stultified the chief debate on Thursday—on the reoommendations proposed by Sir John Peking- ton's Committee for expediting business by abridging the forms of the House. The recommendations of the Committee, which we summed up in a former number, were adopted, except the one that the adjournment on the Friday evening should be a matter of course unless it were ordered otherwise. Independent Members, and men who may become independent Members by the vicissi- tudes of office, did not like to give up the pretext for unclassified speeches ; and the leaders on both sides agreed with Mr. Bright in rejecting that curtailment of idle talk. The abridgments of form recommended by the Committee may save some minutes ; but they leave untouched the enormous waste of hours and of days upon parish and private business, in which the House of Commons persists ; and they had nothing to check the true motive to the waste of time—the love of " lively " debate, which consumes whole evenings in the enjoyment of personal recrimination. All the business of the week, the forwarding of certain bills a stage, might have been done some time ago, and better done ; some of the work cancelled needed not have been cancelled; and some of the sub- stituted work, such as the settlement of schoolmasters' stipends in Scotland, might have been saved, if Members could but recollect that they sit in Parliament for public business and not for amuse- ment or personal display. It is not their forms that they want to abridge, but themselves and their inattention to real duty.
It is understood to be now settled that the functions of War Minister and Colonial Minister shall be separated, but not to what statesmen the separated offices shall be allotted. Various persons are mentioned as candidates, and some journals appear already to have preengaged the offices for their own favourites. Mr. Urqu- hart, and others who believe in an ascendant Russian agency in the offices of our public departments and journals, will not be surprised to see that the Times has already appointed Lord Palmerston to the post of War Minister—claiming it for him on the setting forth that he is " the old enemy of Russia "; and there is some suspi- cion that even if the Duke of Newcastle be permitted to retain the war business, it will only be as locum tenens for the Minister who is predestined by Nicholas to conduct the English war against Russia in such fashion that it shall inflict no substantial injury upon Lord Palmerston's fellow diplomatist the Emperor himself! Should the Duke select the War Ministry, as the more exigent half of his present duties, the choice of a Colonial Minister would come in question ; and already we observe that some of our con- temporaries mention the name of Sir William Molesworth,—a Colonial reformer, whose principles have already been recognized to a great extent by the present Administration, and who has re- cently had the opportunity of showing that he possesses powers of application to the ordinary work of an office.
