Signs of the renewed conflict are discerned in the Ministerial
defeat of the week—and signs also of the empty pretexts on which the contending parties at present stand. Last week Ministers invited collision with the Lords : this week the Lords are paying them (out
-"—suffering a Peer of minor standing to emasculate their Irish Erinchise Bill by raising the county qualification from 81. to 151. The
special pretext is that the Irish are not "qualified", to exercise the franchise. Are they less qualified than English county voters— less intelligent, less independent? And what a preposterons lapse Of common sense in policy is this of which the reviving Tories are guilty ! The franchise may not be a very important matter for the Irish just now, when material improvements occupy the first place ; but the Tories are positively supplying the Whigs and. Liberals, and any nascent O'Connell, with an election-cry—that the grudging Tories refuse political equality to the Irishman ! Such is the effect of entering on a renewed eampaign without a policy or a settled plan. Respecting the site for the Exposition of 1851, Ministers have been more fortunate, although it was simultaneously made the sub- ject of hostile demonstration in both Houses on Thursday. Pro- ably for want of genuine and substantial grounds; however, the assailant parties had no common action. From what passed in the House of Lords, it now appears without disguise that some private interests and dislikes are arrayed against the plan : Mr. Justice Cresswell dislikes it, and his invalid sister is alarmed at it; Lord. Campbell, who acts for the judge and an architect, thinks the use of the Park illegal, is being counter to a statute and the prescriptive right of the people to the free usage of the Park ; and an injunc- tion in Chancery is threatened. Colonel Sibthotp, hater of' rail- roads, commissions, foreign goods, and all innovating activities, hates the Exposition. But neither in argument nor votes did the opponents make a strong stand : Lord Brougham withdrew bin motion for a Select Committee ; adverse motions by Colonel Sib- thorp and Sir Benjamin Hall were negatived by divisions of nearly four to one.
