5 FEBRUARY 1870, Page 4

TOPICS OF THE DAY.

THE COMING SESSION.

PARLIAMENT meets once more on Tuesday, and it isnatural, even if it is rather foolish, to forecast a little the pro- gress of its work. One has always to reckon with the unfore- seen, more especially in politics, but apart from the unforeseen, the business of a Session has rarely been more clearly mapped out. There is the debate on the Address, during which we shall hear a great deal of the terrible condition of Ireland— which is as it were sending out vapour, like lime when it is slaked for building — and something of the anti- Imperial tone of the Ministry in their treatment of our Colonial possessions, and a good deal, possibly even a great deal, of the wrongs of poor Mr. Madden ; and then the Address will be accepted, and there will be a momentary lull until, on Thursday the 17th it is said, the Premier lays his Tenure Bill before the country. The speech which introduces this measure ought to be, and probably will be, an event even in Mr. Gladstone's oratorical life, for he has warned the country beforehand that the difficulties of Irish tenure are the result of Irish history, and no topic is better calculated to arouse that passion of moral earnestness which is the Premier's motive force, while there must be just enough of finance in his plan to set his marvellous fancy in a glow, and make him fling light on every detail, and brilliance on the one little impracti- cable suggestion without which he has seldom yet introduced a grand reform. There will be debate enough over the measure, but it has survived the criticism of a Cabinet on this point strangely composite, a Cabinet in which the Duke of Argyll sits by Mr. Bright ; the Liberal ranks will close up steadily in its support ; the real Opposition, the Conservative landlords, dread discussion about tenure almost as much as they dislike innovation in tenure, and we should not be surprised to see the Bill sent up to the Lords by Easter. It certainly will be, if, as rumoured, its main principle is that the law must make of the bad landlord a good one, for the English land- lords will then have little heart for opposition. Their theory of themselves is that they are good, and their presumption that the rest of mankind, Irishmen more especially, are com- paratively bad, while they will not forget that of all mankind tenant-farmers when fairly secure are the most Conservative class. Then, of course, the next great omnibus, the Education Bill, will be driven up. It is supposed that the discussion over this Bill will be enormous, but we are not so sure of that. Mr. Forster has announced publicly that he has hit upon a scheme which in his belief will secure the great end, the education of every child in England, yet receive the approval of both parties ; and immense as the promise seems, Mr. Forster is not an over-sanguine statesman, he understands where the shoe pinches—as witness the compromise by which he saved Mr. Lowe's New Code—and he is perhaps the only determined Radical in the House on whom the body of the English clergy are disposed to look without hostility. The Tories, too, unless more ecclesiastical than rectors, are, to do them jwitice, honest on education, do actually want the people to be taught, and will, we believe, assist any measure broad enough for the purpose, yet not revolutionary, to get through. If resistance comes, it will come, we suspect, from the extreme Radical wing, which, although it may have, nay, will have, a future, has at present no great voting-power. The Bill will, in all probability, go through in time for the Uni- versity Tests' Bill, which, to use an Americanism, has to be passed in spite of the strange reluctance displayed by one or two Cabinet Ministers to take it up in earnest. This is in a peculiar sense the Bill of the party, the measure on which their consciences, not to mention their tempers, are interested, and it must be passed, if Parliament has to sit into the dog-days to do it. Every loss of a year is in this matter the loss of a generation of young men, and the young become the old and govern. There will be bitter feeling displayed about this Bill, and we cannot believe its opponents will be much longer blind to the danger of a resistance which, if further protracted, will end in the secularization of all fellowships, or a provision that they can be held by any minister recognized as such by any denomination. Then comes another bitter Bill, the fourth "omnibus," to which Mr. Bruce pledged himself last Session, the Legalization of Trades' Unions, a topic which excites more feeling than almost any other now pressing, and which will give rise to much and warm debate not indeed on its princi- ples, but on its main detail, the right of the new Guilds to expend their own funds for " trade " purposes without losing their corporate character. Next to this may come, it would seem from Mr. Stansfeld's speech at Halifax, the Bill for the reforming the methods of election, that is, as we apprehend, for the introduction of the Ballot. There isvery little to be said upon that subject in the way of argument, and the Opposition shows. symptoms of weariness and dislike to resist. No one has. ever answered or will answer the objection that every public, duty should be performed in public, and be subject to the control of enlightened opinion ; but the weight of the facts„ the scandalous scenes in Ireland, the oppression in parts or Wales, the pressure on tradesmen in county towns, and the terrorism on the educated in some great cities, seems in most. men's minds to crush fortitude out, and make even the- doubters, like Mr. Hughes at Frome, ask for the protection of the ballot.

Here are four good large omnibuses to be tugged through,. and Mr. Goschen may make his appearance as driver of a fifth. There may be a pause for another session, but a great Rating Act of some kind cannot be much longer delayed. The rates press on us all more heavily than the taxes, the old " impatience " is now directed against them, and there is a. growing feeling that their incidence must be a little shifted, must be a little more equally distributed on men's shoulders. Pauperism does not decline, while the needs of paupers increase,. and from every part of the country comes up the same cry that the old system is reviving, that rates are granted in aid of wages, and that the receivers of alms are becoming rapidly demoralized. It is ceasing to be shameful to get some- thing from the parish. The big Bill which is to alter the form of the pressure may not come this year, but some bills. will, and the Poor Law is, next to theology, the subject upon. which most men think everybody else is in the wrong. There- will be debates on the Poor Laws running all through the Session, angry debates, it may be, even if, which we doubt,. there is no great bill. So there will also be upon the Licens- ing Bill, which has been promised, and which is in the highest degree a "Members' Bill." The measure is in every borough the shibboleth of an ardent party which tests its member by his opinion upon teetotalism, and it will consequently be thoroughly discussed. An enormous private interest, moreover, that of the- publicans of all grades, will be seriously affected, while there is reason to believe that Mr. Lowe has a project for making a moral reform pay which is certain to be, at all events, hotly contested. Night after night will be given to any Licensing Bill the Government may prepare, even if its financial provisions should please as much as Mr. Lowe's Budget is almost certain to do. That must be a strange budget which Mr. Lowe has prepared and Mr. Gladstone endorsed, and yet which the House of Commons heartily dislikes, and this year the Budget will be of the kind every popular assembly approves, a budget with large remissions and no fresh taxes. There are the Telegraphs to be paid for ; but there will be a surplus on the last year's accounts, and for next year possible remissions of more than four millions sterling, some of which, if Mr. Lowe is very wise and very self-denying, may go to the relief of the agricultural interest.. In any case, however, a budget which allows of remissions is not likely to prove one of the Government omnibuses, to be lumbered through by main force; but will rather resemble one of those red Government vans, which seem able to cut through any press, and often cleave a way for the heavier vehicles behind. There may, it is true, be debate on the method by which the surplus has been .obtained. We expect a cry from the Dockyards, and a roar from disgusted Admirals ; but neither cry nor roar will fill up Government nights, and the

as a whole, is never willing heartily to oppose reduc- tions. Constituents are many and Government workmen few,. and in spite of bitter debate, there will, we imagine, be time for all the serious work which Government proposes to attempt.

It will be observed that we expect nothing of which the public has not heard, no great surprise, nothing which might be questioned on account of its originality. It is very improbable that any unexpected discussion will arise. The Government has too much obligatory work to seek to make more, and private members are discouraged by the weight of the majority. There is a rumour that Mr. Bruce has a plan for the government of London, a plan which will greatly extend instead of diminishing the authority of the City, and this may be the sixth omnibus of which Mr. Bright spoke at Binning- ham; but we strongly suspect that this plan will at best only -be brought forward this Session. The government of London touches too many interests and rouses too many animosities to be treated as a matter of detail, and a really great bill would need almost as much attention as a first-class political measure, and perhaps take up more time. The only question as yet perceptible which may assume grand proportions is that of the Game laws, which are being attacked all over the country with a vigour and persistency that indicates irritated feeling. The fifty Chambers of Agriculture seem disposed to disagree with cripture, and rise in insurrection against rabbits as if they were not in truth "feeble folk ;" and if their spirit is that of -the farmers at large, some radical alteration must be thought -out and fought out before county members again present them- selves to their constituencies. A regular Game-law fight, with borough members all awake and county members at once -angry and disconcerted, would perhaps seriously interrupt the programme of the Session, but that is the only little cloud visible as yet. To all appearance, we shall have six months of hard, steady, fructifying, but comparatively silent work.