NEWS OF THE WEEK.
THE two great subjects of the week are Ireland and India,—the final victory in the Punjaub ; difficulty, endless difficulty in Ire- land, without hope of victory.
Ireland has formed an episode in the proceedings of Par- liament, placing in abeyance the progress of the Corn Bill. -This obstruction has not been forced on Ministers, but in part *ought about by them. The history of the affair is not clear, and some materials for it are probably kept back. But what has been divulged is too curious not to be examined. It will be re- membered how Mr. John Young made a kind of bargain with Loid George Bentinck, that if the Country party" would not oppose the first reading of the Irish Assassination Bill, as Sir Ro- bert Peel now calls it, the third reading of the Corn Bill should Anit- be pressed before Easter. It was presumed that, in order to impede the:Corn Bill,. "the Country party" might help to make ezittath of the opposition. -to, the Assassination Bill : such is the Parliamentary view oflonest tactics ! Sir Robert Peel disavowed ' the bargain, and -refused to ratify it ; but Lord George and his party had gone too far to retract—the Irish bill was to have their support. Their virtue has been rewarded. Anxious as the Free- t.aders were, or professed to be, for the uninterrupted progress of the Corn Bill, the Irish Members were too much bent upon their own objects to waive opposition to the " Coercion " Bill in the earliest stage. The Corn Bill therefore has been set aside, for a fight over the other measure. Anger at the interruption has been turned against Ministers; who are charged with provoking it needlessly. It was certainly untoward. Nor is it a true economy of time to attempt the ac- complishment of two things at once. If three months were necessary to the passing of the two measures, it would surely have been better to forward one first, so that it might run an inde- pendent course and come into operation, without impeding both by attempting to drive them through Parliament abreast. People ask if Sir Robert Peel can be sincere about his new Corn-law, when he puts such an evident obstruction in its way ? There is not a particle of reason to doubt his sincerity, but every reason to put faith in what he advances. He says, that according to eti- quette and precedent every bill sent down from the House of Lords is read a first time as a matter of course. The statement is true, and the practice is just. Permitting a bill to be read a first time, is no more than declaring that the House will entertain the question involved in the bill : and surely the fact that the mea- sure has the deliberate sanction of a coordinate branch of the Legislature is sufficient claim upon so much respectful attention as a first reading implies. Refusing a first reading under such circumstances, is saying that one House will not listen to what the other has to propose ; an absurdity scarcely justified in the most extreme cases. Sir Robert Peel's expectation, therefore, was not without warrant. Besides, we all know that Sir Robert has an excessive respect for etiquette and precedent merely as such. He has not scrupled to make and unmake parties ; but he would not join in the most reasonable proposition—such as to thank civil as well as military officers—in the teeth of Parlia- mentary usage. There is, then, no imputation on his sincerity because he suffers the march of the Corn Bill to be delayed by a rule of Parliament.
Besides, a yet sterner compulsion may have swayed him. It is probable that he may not put much faith in this "Curfew Bill "—it is scarcely possible that he should not discern its un- workable character. Others, even among his own colleagues, may estimate it more highly. It is plain that the Lords do so as a body ; for it comes down with their unanimous sanction. Even Lord Grey, who insisted on the necessity of auxiliary measures, did not withhold his vote from the Assassination Bill. But, with the intention of sending up an important bill from the Commons, is Sir Robert Peel to set the example of slighting a measure emanating from a branch of the Legislature ? Such appear to be the probable excuses for suffering the Irish Assassination Bill to obstruct the passage of the Corn Bill : but the very necessity of weighing etiquettes and examples so nicely would indicate a remarkable degree of weakness in the Govern- ment. The delay in advancing the auxiliary measures for Ire- land arises from another symptom of weakness: the Secretary for Ireland has not yet obtained a seat in the House of Commons, and is obliged to do his business by deputy. The Assassination Bill is itself a manifestation of weakness : Ireland is a desperate case, and those who are answerable for its control, not knowing what to do, resort to a remedy which is not only desperate, but is the last of a series of coercive measures distinguished by uni- form failure. What is the peculiar quality in this bill that pro- mises a singular success ? What will be its practically advanta- geous results?
Ireland is not deliberately rebellious, and coercion is not appo- site to her case. She is rude, maddened by misery, habituated to a peculiar class of crime—not actively vicious, but suffering under chronic insanity : and the causes of that madness are actively at work. See such things as the " evictions" still going on ' • like that on the Gerrard estate, where a whole village is turned out, and two or three hundred souls are expelled from their homes dug up like ants! Men in Parliament loudly proclaim these evictions as something which provokes assassination ; and what can coercion bills do in the teeth of such confessions and such maddening stimulants ? But is the present Government specially to blame 4 Lord John Russell, indeed, says that, together with coercion of' crime, there ought to be measures searching into the causes of crime and pro- viding remedies : but what plan has he? None, we suspect: he does not talk like a man with a plan. Mr. Poulett Scrope en- deavours to go to a primary root of the evil; says that the urgent want of Ireland is an efficient poor-law, and accordingly proposes a system of out-door relief. He brings forward pictures of deiti- tution which are truly appalling; and his authorities are the Commissioners of Poor Inquiry in Ireland, Mr. Revans, and other official persons who reported to the Whig Ministers. Those old pictures still apply. Ten or twelve years have been suffered to pass, yet nothing effectual has been done: the Conservative Ministers are answerable for the neglect in the last four of those years—the Whig Ministers for the rest ; and it may be added, that in the interval the Whig Poor-law has been brought into play, without altering a single feature of the picture. Nor blame we exclusively the Whig Ministers : they inherited that frightful mass of arrears, of negligence and misrule in Ireland, whose vast- ness struck despair upon the desire effectually to grapple with it. It is for the future that the Ministers for the time being are an- swerable. The evil is one that has lasted for generations, and the best temporary palliatives cannot be other than mockeries. They too have no more comprehensive plan. Mr. Poulett Scrope pro- poses one remedy that would be critical : Sir James Graham superciliously ridicules it as impracticable. His sneers are no answer to Mr. Scrope. Even the consequences which he foresha- dows as deterrents are no answer : that a poor-law would " con- fiscate " property, is an assumption; that it would eat largely into rental, is most probable; that Irish landlords would cause trouble to any Ministry sanctioning such a project, is certain : but mean- while, the poor are starving on the land which is so fertile. The maintenance of the national people is, in reason, the first charge upon the land; rent is an artificial and posterior burden ; and is no answer to the prior claim to say that the ulterior one will not be satisfied.
But these debates, like all before them, go off without sub- stantial advantage to poor Ireland, labouring under its Repeal rent and its Ribandism.
