WS OF THE WEEK.
THE Parliamentary week was opened auspiciously, by the second reading of the Irish Municipal Bill without a division. The Tories profess unabated hostility to the principle of reform it con- tains; though, strange to say, the utter annihilation of the system at present established has their nominal approval. The Liberals propose to erect new municipal institutions on the ruins of those about to be swept away, in order that the Irish may have the same control over the management of their local affairs that the English and Scotch have recently obtained over theirs. Sir ROBERT PEEL, Lord STANLEY, and the Tories generally, admit that the existing Corporations are past cure—that they are too bad to be mended : but instead of aiding in the endeavour to establish others on sounder principles, they tell the Irish that they shall have none at all; and that the system of "centralization" is best for them,—for this admirable reason, that the majority are -Catholics, and therefore not to be trusted with the choice of local Tillers. They propose that the appointment of Magistrates, Police, and other borough and civic oflicers, shall be invested in the Lord- Lieutenant, and that the inhabitants shall have, of right, no voice or influence whatever in their selection. The pretence for daring to propose this system of exclusion in Ireland, which they durst not propose in England or in Scotland, is the numerical superiority of the Catholics, who will be enabled to domineer over Protestants if both are put upon a level in respect to political rights. Like all tyrants who have shamefully abused their power, the Irish Ascendancy faction dreads retaliation. We believe that they exaggerate the amount of danger from this source, and do injus- tice to the character of their Catholic fellow countrymen; but if all that they fear were certain to happen, the question occurs, whether the Catholic majority is to be deprived of the benefits of self-government, in order to preserve the handful of Protestants from that political insignificance—or at the worst, that exclusion from the ruling order—to which every minority is liable? Yes, say the Tories: if the Protestants are not to be exempted from the natural consequences of their position,—if they are to be treated as a minority, which we acknowledge that they are,—then the Irish nation shall not have municipal institutions framed on popular principles ; but the Lord-Lieutenant, nominated by the Crown, shall be to them in the place of the Mayor, Aldermen, and Coun- cillors, whom Englishmen and Scotchmen elect from among themselves. Yet these men profess a desire to pacify Ireland ! Sir ROBERT PEEL laboured hard in behalf of his party. He spoke for two hours in reply to the well-arranged arguments of Mr. OloniaLEar, who moved the second reading of the bill. But he never harangued with less effect. The cheers from the Op- position benches were few and spiritless. The Tories seemed to feel that their leader, after all, was only striving to cover a disas- trous retreat ; and that the yielding up of the corporate garrisons in Ireland was an admission of weakness, which no rhetoric could disguise, no misrepresentation convert into a cheerful surrender of useless authority. Even the Tory Times admits that Mr. SPRING RICE, who an- swered Sir ROBERT PEEL, delivered "a very clever speech." We have seldom heard a more effective one: Mr. RICE was certainly in admirable debating trim on Monday night. He is one who never foregoes an advantage, and PEEL neither deserved nor re- ceived mercy at his hands. Lord STANLEY avowed, in plain terms, that the question before the House was fully as much religious as political ; and he argued, in direct contradiction to the course he adopted when defending his Irish Reform Bill, that it would be hazardous to legislate on the same principles for Ireland as for England, because in Ireland the majority are Catholics. Mr. SHIM again signalized himself by a sarcastic reply to STANLEY; for whom he now seems to be almost more than a match in debate. The allusion to STANLEY S desertion of his party, and his vain attempt to escape from the charge of political inconsistency, told well in the House.
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" The noble lord," he said, " had indeed gone to the enemy's camp, but he had left his arms behind him. He could not do the
same detriment to his arguments as to his character, nor deal with his logic as it had unhappily pleased him to deal with his reputation." The question will be discussed again on Monday next ; when Lord FRANCIS EGERTON—Sir ROBERT'S " Black Surry "—will be saddled for the field. He has given notice of a motion, vaguely worded, but on which it is intended to found the Tory substitute for Municipal Corporations in Ireland. Among the other subjects to which the attention of Parliament has been directed during the week, may be mentioned the new regulations respecting the conduct of Railway Bills through the House of Commons; the distress of the landed interest in Scot- land ; the arrangements for separating the civil from the eccle- siastical functions of the Bishop of Durham ; and, last night, the increase of the naval force of the country, proposed in a Committee of Supply by Mr. CHARLES WOOD. The House will not listen to Mr. PETER BORTHWICK on the subject of the Mauritius—or, we may safely presume, on any other matter: on Wednesday it was counted out when he rose to speak, and last night he pru- dently withdrew his motion without obtaining what he solicited- ar. assurance from Ministers that he should meet with less scurvy treatment on a future occasion.
The indecent attempt to ward off inquiry into the practices at Poole has failed. On Wednesday. a Select Committee was appointed for the purpose of investigating the circumstances at- tending the last municipal election there. We anticipate the exposure of some old-fashioned Tory work; for Mr. Sc Aauirr and Mr. WYNN were extremely anxious to keep matters quiet and snug. The motion for the Committee was carried by 188 to 70. An unforeseen difficulty in applying to a particular case the new regulations for divisions in the Commons, occurred on Wed- nesday. The House was in Committee on the Prisoners' Counsel Bill; and was about to divide on one of the clauses, when it was stated that Mr. WARD'S resolution did not, in its technical wording, extend to the proceedings in Committee. The easiest thing in the world it would have been for the House to amend the defective wording of the resolution, so as to remove the obstruction to the despatch of business ; and Mr. WARD was prepared with a motion for that purpose. The Speaker, however, objected to the want of notice ; at the same time admitting that notice of a motion was not indispensable, although it was usual. Surely Mr. ABERCRO MBY was over-punctilious in this matter. It would be childish in any man or set of men, meeting with an obstacle which they have the power to remove in three minutes, without doing harm to any man or thing, not to put it out of the way at once. When will Members of Parliament condescend to transact public affairs on the rules of common sense, and economy of time and trouble? We should have expected, from all previous knowledge of his habits, that the
present Speaker would have been the first to facilitate the pro-
gress of business, instead of interposing an unnecessary and vexa- tious delay. Mr. ABERCROMBY mast not, even by so much of his
countenance as this piece of " mock solemnity" implied, assist the Tories and Trimmers in defeating the endeavours of the earnest Reformers to obtain an authentic record of the votes of the Mem-
bers. The method of dividing, with a view to this end, should be improved and perfected ; but the thing itself cannot be given up.
