NEWS OF THE WEEK.
far" than any of the adepts in their ranks. The result is, that they have been foiled at the game, and their principal performer Las lost a considerable portion of his own character for manly, straightforward, dealing. Such seems to be the inevitable as it is the invariable consequence of a connexion with the present Ad- ministration. The only safety lies in shunning it. Every public
man who joins it, finds his reputation tarnished in one way or another. Of this truth Mr. LITTLETON must now feel bitterly conscious.
We mentioned last week, that the Coercion Bill was to be re- newed with modifications. It was then tolerably well ascer-
tained, that the only alteration of consequence to be made in the bill was the omission of the Court-martial clauses. But it had been previously whispered (in confidence of course—all the world hears these things in confidence), that the omissions were to be numerous, including those parts of the measure which were aimed at preventing political meetings and discussions, while such as were intended for the suppression of agrarian disturbances were to be retained, with the full approbation of the Irish Members of all parties : in short, the bill was to be " stripped of its claws." It now turns out (though the facts were denied or mystified in the Government journals of Thursday evening), that Mr. O'CONNELL had been asSured by Mr. LITTLETON of such being the intention of Government on this side the Channel, and that the Irish Government was against the renewal of the bill of last year. In return for this concession, Mr. O'Coslrrem. forbore to push his measures of agitation, and actually abandoned the Wexford Re- peelers to fight their battle with the. Whig candidate as they might choose. Ministers, however, had either made a tool of Mr. LimeroN in the first instance, or, with their usual inconstancy of purpose, had changed their minds in the course of a few days ; for Earl GREY, on Tuesday, moved in the House of Peers to re- new the Coercion Bill, with the omission only of the Court-mar- tial clause ; at the same time, strongly avowing his belief of the -connexion of political with agrarian agitation. Thus it appeared that O'CONNELL had been aped. Mr. LITTLETON, we are ready to believe, was sincere in his communication to the Agitator; and had he resigned his place when he found the course of Govern- ment altered, his character would have stood as fair as ever. But he still retains his Secretaryship, and is prepared to defend the bill which he acknowledges that he strongly disapproved of a few days before. Circumstances had not, apparently, changed for the verse" : O'CONNELL had ceased from agitating, in reliance upon the good faith of the Government : and up to the time when Mr. Itmetost sent for Mr. O'CONNELL to his office (after the publi- cation of the letter to the Wexford electors), it is fair to conclude that the Secretary for Ireland was as well informed as his col- le4ues on the state of that country. Mr. LITTLETON asserts that Government received additional reasons for renewing the measure, itiliiequently to his conversation with O'CONNELL. What were those reasons ? It is indeed incumbent on Mr. LITTLETON to show that they were sufficient to justify this sudden change of opinion. At present there is toe much ground to fear, that they were not termini that can be avowed with credit to Mr. LernsroN, or the Tory-truckling Cabinet whose tool he has been in this affair. : It is alleged that aCONNELL committed a breach of confidence. But does any man believe that Mr. LITTLETON intended his com- munication to Mr. OVONNEL L to be kept secret? In what does Mr. OtowsruLes influence consist, if not in the power to guide a body of his brother Members and the great mass of the Irish People ? To pretend that it was out of personal kindlle4S to O'Costrizu. that thq communication was made, is quite childish. Did not the co.isersa- tion begin by alluding to the Wexford election ? It was expected that °Vox:vela. would use the intelligence given him, to keep restless spirits quiet. These sort of confidential communications between public men on public measures, are never viewed in the same light as in private matters; and we will venture to say, that there is no man busied in political pursuits who has not often more or less directly told political " secrets." The fact is, that if Mr. LITTLETON and his colleagues had not changed their minds, —if they had acted in the mariner Mr LITTLETON told O'Cosr- NELL they would act,—the more widely the secret was spread, the better satisfied Ministers would have been. It is their own change of policy which now renders it convenient to make much ado about this "breach of confidence." The present Ministry has more reason, perhaps, than almost any other, to complain of their secrets getting into circulation, precisely because no previous Ministry has been at once so imprudent, and so much addicted to tricky, timeserving expedients. They strive to settle every thing out of doors by means of semi-official whispers and Treasury in- stigation. Ministers intend to lay before Parliament all the evidence they call scrape together in favour of renewing the Coercion Bill ; but the really confidential correspondence of Lord WELLESLEY will be withheld, though it is essential to Mr. LITTLETON'S reputation that it should be forthcoming. Our Representatives therefore will not be at all certain that they are not called upon to renew the bill in direct defiance of the Irish Viceroy's opinion and advice, in order to forward some political intrigue, or to soften the asperity of some Conservative opposition. The advice of Lord ANGLESEA respecting Church Reform was disregarded by the Whigs, though he still retained his post; so, in like manner, Lord NV E L LESLEY and Mr. LirnatoN may continue to be the tools of a Ministry whose measures they protest against. It is the clear and positive duty of the House of Commons to demand the entire correspon- dence of Lord WELLESLEY ; and, in case of its non-production, to refuse to renew the unconstitutional Coercion Bill: they should not be content with garbled extracts. The bill was read a second time in the House of Peers last night; Lord DURHAM befit.- its solitary opponent. The subject of Irish Tithes is closely connected with that of the Irish Coercion Bill. It was fitting, therefore, that the two sub- jects should be discussed in the same week. Mr. LITTLETON an- nounced, on Monday, another most important alteration in his Tithe Bill. The question is so complicated, that most of the Members who spoke, professed their inability clearly to understand it, and all except Ministers called for more time in order to master the subject. Last night, Mr. LirrLeroN tendered further ex- planations in Committee, but did not succeed very well. We have taken some pains to get at the real meaning of the new plan of these ever-shifting politicians, and will try to state it clearly. It will be recollected that the Redemption-clauses of the Tithe Bill were struck out in order to get rid of the perpetual appropri- ation of the land, bought with the produce of redeemed tithes, to the purposes of the Church. The Irish landlords, however,objected to submitting their estates to a land-tax, convertible into a rent - charge, unless means of redeeming that rent-charge on advantageous terms were offered them. To obviate this difficulty, and induce them to submit to a voluntary rent-charge, was the object of Mr. LirmeroN in introducing his new clauses. He proposes that the amount they now pay in tithes under the last Composition Act, shall be multiplied by four-fifths of the number of years' purchase their land is valued at ; and they are to pay on this sum 34 per -cent, to the Commissioners (for the tithe-owner) annually ; but they are not to have this privilege unless they claim it, and act accordingly, before the 1st November 1836. Dissentients front this plan will continue to pay the amount of their composition in the form of a land-tax instead of tithe. In order to make this arrangement more clear, we will suppose that a landownerpays 101: a year as tithe now, in future as land-tax, to the Commissioners : suppose also that the farm out of which this payment issues is worth twenty years' purchase, four-fifths of which are sixteen ; let the lot, be multiplied by 16, and we get 1601.; on this sum of 1601., he is to pay only 31 per cent., or 5/. 12s. Thus, he will save 41. 8s. per annum by acceding to the Government propo- sition: he will get a bonus, as Mr. LITTLETON said, of from 20 to 40 per cent. at least, according to circumstances. The tithe... owner is to submit to a reduction of 221 per cent, in order In repay Government for the cost of collection, and in return for regular receipts of his dues which he now with difficulty gets at all. But 22:4 per cent, deducted from 101. leaves 71.15s. aattid-C;Ovarst:4- made up to the Consolidated Fund tint of whio toto
the-owner
.01 ment will collect only 51. 12s .; how is the differe hands of the cornmisaiongrs wing under th otolviemperer, ;414 dth.r final's in the
are ta he paid ? Why, from the perpetuity an
Mies Act of last session ! Thus, as Lord ALTHORP admitted, the prineiple of the famous 147th clause is to be acted upon after all ; and the State is to have the use of Ecclesiastical property. Now, what can we think of such Ministers ? They refuse most ob- stinately to give peace to Ireland by avowing this principle ; they shrink from declaring the right of the State to appropriate Church property for the national benefit ; and yet they do not scruple to seize on this sacred fund, in order to bribe the greedy, intractable landlords of Ireland, into compliance with their confused, round- about scheme for abolishing tithes. We do not wonder that Mr. STANLEY, SIC ROBERT PEEL, Mr. HUME, and Mr. O'CONNELL, joined in resistance to this project; for it is calculated to give real satisfaction to no party or description of' men in or out of Parlia- ment,—except the tithe-paying Protestant landlords of Ireland, who are to be helped on one hand out of the Public purse, and on the other out of the Church treasury. They are to pocket that surplus which ought to be laid out for the benefit of the nation at large. But Ministers received votes in return for their enormous bribe ; and the new clause proposed by Mr. Lirri.sroN was agreed to, last night, by a majority of 64, the numbers being 235 and 171. The debate which preceded this decision was unusually animated and interesting. Mr. STANLEY railed at the Ministers like a fish- woman: he called them "thimble-rig-players," &c. &e.; and their scheme a " petty larceny" project. Lord ALTHORP, with perfect good-humour and great adroitness, turned the tables upon the waspish declaimer : he retorted upon him the miserable failure of his own efforts to settle the Tithe question, and declared that his experience of Mr. STANLEY on the Treasury bench had prepared him to expect precisely such an exhibition as he had heard that might from his former colleague! Sir ROBERT PEEL exposed the trimming system of expedients by which Ministers lived : on all occasions, he said, they relieved themselves from difficulties by Ike mean, vulgar expedient, of putting their hands into the pub- lic purse,—a course in all times and countries symptomatic of weakness and decay. There the Oracle uttered a profound truth.
The Conservative Peers gave the Poor Law Amendment Bill an unfriendly reception in their House, on Wednesday. The ultimate fate of the measure can hardly, however, be doubt- ful, after the support it received from all parties in the House of Commons. The Peers have it in their power to secure a little rabble popularity by rejecting it; but the necessity of some strong measure to stop the progress of pauperism is felt every time their Lordships examine into their accounts with Courrs or RANSOM. The measures which the Poor Law Bill proposes to enforce throughout the kingdom, have had a marvellous effect in reducing the poor-rates in those districts where they have been tried. This argument in favour of the bill is worth all the decla- mation against it ten times over. The Peers will probably look upon it as a bill to raise the rent of land in England ; and will therefore pass it, while they rail at its authors.
Mr. POULETT Thomsorr has been doing some good in a small way. The duties on several articles of general use—such as Zante currants, dried fruits, and oils—are to be considerably reduced. The duty on foreign books, printed since 1801 (why the restriction of date?) is to be lowered from 5/. to 2/. 10s. per hundredweight; and the export-duty on coal exported in British vessels is to be entirely taken off. Some doubts were expressed as to the policy of this last alturation, by Mr. WARBURTON and others,—and it is doubtful, though a boon to the coal "interest," which Lord ALTHORP unawares admitted : but every one commended Mr. POULETT Tnomsorr for the wisdom of the other rtductions.
The Peers have decided that riots on a large scale, and fraudu- lent registrations, are not abuses of that description which would justify the Legislature in passing such a bill as that for the en- largement and purification of Warwick. It is evident, however, that the effect of such proceedings is as injurious as that of bribery and treating, and of a very similar nature; for the free exercise of the elective franchise, which it is the duty of Government to secure to all qualified persons, is thereby prevented. We look, therefore, upon the decision of the Peers not to admit evidence of such practices, as an additional proof of their determination at all events to throw out the bill.
A considerable portion of the time which the Peers devote to public business, has been taken up this week in considering the breach of privilege committed by the Morning Post in accusing Lord BROUGHAM of forging an entry in the journals of the House. The upshot of the affair is, that the editor was reprimanded and discharged. Had not the conviction been general that the responsible person was not the real author of the libel (who must have been some one near enough to the Woolsack to overhear a whisper from Lord DENMAN to Lord BROUGHAM), it is probable that the punishment inflicted would have been more than nominal. But their Lordships were aware of the bad figure they always cut, when arraigning a morally innocent though legally guilty person; especially when almost every one believed that the real delinquent was some spiteful, meddling, ill-informed Peer, among those who sat in judgment on the person at the bar. Under these circum- stances, they would have acted more wisely had they been content with Lord BROUGHAM'S satisfactory exculpation in the first Instance, without bringing their dignity and privileges into collision with an individual, who in fact set them at defiance, by refusing to give up the author of the libel.
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