NEWS OF THE WEEK.

By far the larger part of the election has now been effected. We have before us the greater number of the names of those who are to compose the new House of Commons, and the country has nearly said its say according to that form of utterance. The difficulty is, to extract from the entire proceeding throughout the country anything like a principle upon which it has been guided. In the Liberal sense, so " unprincipled " an election has perhaps never taken place. The China question went for something, but not everywhere, and not for very much anywhere. Other considerations came into play. The most general feeling was a certain liking for Lord Palmerston, and an inclination to approve of the policy of the present Government during the late war. But that feeling is so very general in the country, that it passed as a matter of course, and constituted no distinctive characteristic. The opposite influence showed itself somewhere, but then it was the exception, and it by no means had, the effect of preventing the election of candidates who avowed it. No ruling principle displayed itself. " Reform " was mentioned here and there, but with nothing like uniformity either in the mode of mention or in the distribution of the attention to the subject. It was the same with Church-rates, which were occasionally alluded to ; with Sunday observance ; with Maynooth, which settled the point of the election in some places ; with the Ballot. But we cannot say that any one of these topics was taken up by one class of constituencies and forgotten by others. The recollection of the constituencies appears to be entirely capricious —perhaps suggested by fortuitous circumstances. Upon the whole, there was a disposition to cashier men who had made themselves remarkable, even when the character of the representation was not changed by the change of persons. It was as if the instinct that ostracized Aristides had been extended to a number of places and every variety of personal trait. In one sense it might be said that the love of mediocrity ruled. Sometimes the change appeared to be made for the sake of change. In some eases overweening confidence induced the old Members not to canvass, and the new lover who was more assiduous in his courting carried away the poll. The election has been a kind of holidaymaking, a saturnalia, in which it has been thought necessary to go through the forms of excitement without very much of the feeling. An all but universal indifference implies that the new House of Commons has been to a great extent appointed, through the constituted electors, by the professional election-agency. One party in the state had resolved that there should be "an appeal to the country " ; the established election-agency of both parties was called upon to provide candidates at the shortest notice ; and the candidates were supplied accordingly, where they were wanted, singly, in pairs, or assorted. It appears to us that there has been rather a large proportion of elections entirely uncontested, even where political principles might have been expected to run high. Another characteristic of the election on the surface looks incompatible with that : there is a large proportion of Members displaced ; but we have already glanced at the secondary causes which prevailed, by favour of the general indifference, to promote change.

The displacements have extended to every party. One party, indeed, has been very generally spared, and the extreme opposite party has been most roughly handled. The Ministerialists, as such, have suffered little loss and have made great gains. • The most conspicuous Ministerial Members ousted are Mr. Peel, Lord 31onek, Admiral Berkeley, and Mr. John Ball ; Mr. Ball, it is said, because he hesitated to give Sligo its price; the Admiral, from causes scarcely intelligible ; Lord Monek, because in the choice of two out of three candidates very nearly alike, Portsmouth gave the preference to the high character of an old. Mend, Sir Francis Boxing, his China vote notwithstanding ; Kr. Peel, apparently because, with an indiscretion unaccountable in his father's son, he made an exclusive Church-of-England attack on his estimable Unitarian opponent. But the general impulse in favour of Lord Polmerston's Administration has of course told. in the return of the special Ministerial candidates.

The party of his leading opponent on the China question has been, in a Parliamentary sense, obliterated. Among the eminent men whom the electors have this time cashiered, are Mr. Cobden, Mr. Milner Gibson, Mr. Bright, and other loaders of the "Manchester " party. But from the experience in other places, it is very questionable whether the vote on the China question caused their defeat. On the contrary, there must be more permanent causes. Their dogma of peace-at-all-price had rendered them unpopular. They have in some cases not punctually and fairly balanced accounts with their constituents. But above all, they have relied too much upon past services. They have acted as if their success in the Anti-Corn-law League had conferred upon them a permanent office in public life. An honorary rank it has conferred, so that all parties regret the exclusion of such truly "representative men," as impairing tho completeness of the national representation. But any overweening presumption upon past services is very commonly punished, and the success of the Anti-Corn-law League has been so complete that the whole nation is now Free-trader, and the adhesion to Free-trade principles is now no distinction for any party whatsoever.

The League men were originally a section of the Liberal party ; the cognate section of the Conservative party, the Peelites as they are absurdly named, have suffered almost as severely, in the exclusion of Mr. Cardwell, Sir Stafford Northcote, Mr. Bounden Palmer, Mr. Robert Phillimore, and others.

The fashion against anything remarkable in the tenets of men has perhaps contributed to the exclusion of the Nonconformists —Mr. W. J. Fox, Mr. Lawrence Ileyworth, Mr. Apsley Pollatt, with the political Nonconformists, Walmsley, Wilkinson, and Clay. The willingness to enforce a puritanical rigour on the day of rest did not save the two gentlemen named Chambers ; while the organized Sabbath-observance interest failed to exclude several candidates who refused that test in Scotland.

A more miscellaneous party of gentlemen, distinguished by something special in their opinions or by their activities, have also suffered, such as the Honourable Arthur Gordon, Mr. Layard, Mr. David Waddington, Mr. Samuel Laing ; a similar class among the Conservatives are Sir James Weir Hogg, Lord Naas, and others ; while retirement deprives us of some men whose names are familiar, such as Sir John Tyrell, or the Marquis of Chandos. It is by no means impossible that among the causes which have operated upon the electoral mind has been a connexion with some of the commercial projects at present before the public and certain litigations or disclosures ; and some of the men who are omitted in the present Parliament are conspicuously connected with pushing commercial enterprises,--such as Mr. Apsley Pellatt, Mr. David Waddington, Mr. Layard, Mr. Laing, and Mr. Humphrey Brown.

Some few of the elections exhibited scenes of an entirely ex

ceptional character. The savage attack of the mob at Kidderminster is accounted for, but not excused, by the circumstance that at former elections Mr. Lowe was supposed to recognize the claim of the non-electors in that place to exercise a voice, and that now his tone was altered ; while Mr. Boycott, the unsuccessful man, obeyed the lawless " lex loci." The Nonconformists

account for Mr. Mall's defeat by the universal drunkenness of Rochdale. At Hertford was seen the pleasing spectacle. of .0 young candidate sacrificing his own just ambition and retiring in order to keep faith in an engagement which his senior had broken ; Sir Henry Meux considering that he was strong in the right of retraetation, and Mr. Abel Smith holding that the honour of party should be kept as scrupulously as that of a gentleman.

The chiefs of the principal parties have retained their seats. Lord Palmerston of course ; Mr. Disraeli also of course. Lord John Russell fulfilled our expectation of Saturday last, and was not turned out by "the young man from Northampton." Sir James Graham will again walk to his neutral seat. And Mr. Gladstone, whatever he may have lost in popular estimation, still speaks for Oxford University.

Amid the large numbers by whom the rejected are replaced, there is an unusually small proportion of men who have made themselves known to the public. Some, indeed, are old friends in Parliament. We all know whore to class General Thompson, who will add salt to many a debate ; Mr. Slaney, most useful in the investigation of social questions ; Mr. Torrens M'Cullagh, faithful to a future light ; and the Radical Sir John Trelawny. Of the absolutely new men, we have some data respecting Lot hen Kinglake and his relative Mr. Sergeant Kinglake, Sir Arthur Elton, and Mr. William Coningham ; and, still more distinctly, Mr. James Caird, who will be a great acquisition in the discussion of at least one important class of subjects—an agriculturist able to grapple with agricultural statistics, agricultural reform, and political economy. Mr. Ayrton is tolerably familiar to us as an M.P. in petto : and we fancy that, by their parentage, we know something of men like Lord Althorp, Lord Worsley, or Lord Ashley,—though the names remind us that there are families which very greatly differ in different generations.

Indeed, the moral of the whole election, for all of us from the highest downwards, seems to be, "Expect nothing, and you shall not be disappointed."

By some of the usual gauges, the economical condition of the country is most favourable. The Revenue-returns show an increase on the quarter of 115,000/., on tho year of '2,525,0001.; although the revenue from tea, especially in the quarter, was materially contracted by the disturbed state of the trade and the waiting for the reduction of the duty. The exports last week showed a large increase on the two first months of the year over the same months of 1866, the year of largest exports yet witnessed. Nevertheless, there is a general cry of " difficulty " in trade, from low profits and want of money ; and the raising of the Bank discount from 6 to 63per cent, consequent on the unfavourable state of the exchanges, proves that the pressure is not imaginary.

The despatch in which Count Buol recalled the Austrian Minister from Turin has been published, and it shows that the Austrian Government at Vienna has made an advance upon its first hostile diplomatic position. The attack is no longer directed against the press of Piedmont and Genoa, but against the Prime Minister of King Victor Emmanuel, who is personally accused of encouraging disaffection to the Emperor. The long and the short of Count Bud's diplomatic writing seems to be a resolve to pick a quarrel with the Sardinian Government, unless King -Victor Emmanuel change his Minister and his line of policy. It is not probable that he will do so. Although Piedmont has used the utmost exertions to postpone any movement of Italy against the Stranger, when the day shall come, we suspect the Piedmontese will be prepared to take the lead in a defensive warfare, which will become something more than defensive.

The overland mail brings us no confirmation of the message circulated by the Admiralty last week, to the effect that the Emperor of China had censured Yell and ordered him to conciliate the British. The only foundation for this rumour is a newspapergossip report, that the Emperor had instructed Teh to temporize, but to make no concession.

In India there were all the signs of a severe and increasing monetary pressure : the Government Five-per-cent Loan " a failure," the Bank of Bengal raising its discount to 14 per cent, and the bills of the Directors in Leadenhall Street drawing forth exclamations against the government of India from the city of Loudon.

Inopportune as it was, Sir James Gutram's dashing blow on the Persian army is not to be entirely regretted. With a force of less than 4500 men, oomprising about 400 Native Indian cavalry, he had effected a forced march on Burazjoon, traversing forty-six miles of country in forty-one hours, under deluging rain storms ; had taken iatrcuchments and stores, and completely rotted the rwsian army of 7000 men, with his cavalry and artillery alone ; and

had marched back forty-four miles in fifty hours, through a country rendered nearly impassable by the rain —all with great slaughter of the astounded enemy, and with trifling loss to his own little party. Any fighting is inopportune after the conclusion of peace ; but this is an incident which will show in Central Asia what the British could do if it were necessary.

The treaty with this country has been ratified by the Senate of the United States, but with amendments that may be justly questioned. Their tendency is, to restrict the erect of British patronage at parting with our old protégés the Mosquito Indians ; to reject any pledge against accepting other terms if any parties to the present Central ,American settlement do not close with the present terms ; and to modify the guaranteed relation of the Bay Islands to Honduras, so as not to exclude slavery hereafter—in foot, to ignore that subject altogether. The question is, whether these amendments, which only narrow the ground covered by the treaty, impair its power to secure its essential objects ; and at Washington it seemed to be hoped that the British Government would deem that the treaty still attains the direct and essential objects of a settlement.