6 MAY 1837, Page 1

NEWS OF THE WEEK.

Tor Irish policy of Ministers is now fully developed. We know what they intend to do with the Corporations, the Church, and the Poor. On Monday, the Poor Bill was read a second time, without opposition ; on the same night, Lord MORPETH laid be- fore the House of Commons the fifth measure for the settlement of the Tithe question produced within three years ; the Muni- cipal Corporation Bill awaits mutilation in the House of Lords. The debate on the Poor Bill, adjourned from the previous Fri- day, was languid. The speakers were unwilling or unable to grapple with tbe subject. The best that Ministers could say for their measure was, that it was only an experiment, and an experi- ment on a small scale. Admitting the enormity of the evil, Lord JOHN RUSSELL and Lord MORPETH pronounced a sentence of' self-condemnation, when they characterized their remedy as small. No attempt was made to diminish the effect of Mr. O'CosentLes impressive contrast of the overwhelming misery of the Irish peasantry with the petty project of the Government. The universal opinion, however, was that something must be Alone; and doubtless the Ministerial scheme gained supporters -from many timid and ignorant Members who would have been terrified by a really efficient and extensive plan of relief and reform. From indications in the House of Lords as well as in the Commons, it is plain that this bill is to pass, and be- come, as we said some months ago, the measure of the session.

The new Irish Tithe Bill is also diminutive. One could swear that it came of the same stock as the Poor Bill. In some respects It is a little better than the last; in others worse. Instead of postponing for forty or fifty years the period when the Appropria- tion principle should come to bear upon the property of the Church, and borrowing in the mean while from the Consolidated Fund, Lord MORPETH now proposes that the successor of every existing incumbent shall be mulcted, at once, to the extent of ten per cent. per annum on his income, to supply a fund for the education of the people. Lord MORPETH, instead of relying upon the equity of his plan, the reasonableness of making the Church property subservient to the education of the people, and the right of Par- liament so to apply clerical revenues, very unwisely based his proposition on a statute passed by the Irish Parliament in the reign of HENRY the Eighth, which enacted that the clergyman of every parish should keep up a school therein for the purpose of teaching the natives English. Lord MORPETH assumed, and gave the House to understand, that by this act the parson was to maintain the school out of the proceeds of his benefice; and when he added that each clergyman on induction swore to obey the provisions of the aforesaid act, he imputed perjury to the great majority of the Protestant parsons in Ireland, who do nothing of the sort. But the statute of HENRY imposed no such burden on the clergyman ; for it expressly declared that the scholars were to pay him such fees as were usually given to schoolmasters. On examining the act, on Tuesday, we became satisfied that the Irish Secretary had, by omission, given it a false meaning ; and the Standard, on Wednesday, quoted, and correctly reasoned upon, the omitted clause. We acquit Lord MORPETH, to whose nature we believe trickery to be foreign, of any design to deceive the House. He was misled himself by the fag who got up the ma- teriala of his speech ; but surely, on a subject of such importance, he might have exerted himself so far as to read a short act of Parliament, and verify the statements on which he moved the House to legislate. The ground on which Lord MORPETH stood is cut from under him; but, luckily, in his descent he will find a firm resting-place. The claim of the Irish Catholics to benefit from the fund set apart for the purposes of religious and moral instruction in their country, is undeniable, indefeasible; and it would not perhaps be easy to point out a better mode of doing the little he is trying to do, than that which Lord MORPETH suggests. But, after all, what a poor affair it is to quarrel about l—a mere

pepper-corn rent, which proves that the fee is in the State instead of the Church.

The tithes are to be commuted into a rent-charge, according to the old plan, at the rate of 70/. rent-charge for every 100/. of tithe. Thus the landowner who had already obtained a consi- derable reduction under composition acts in return for taking upon himself the burden of direct payment to his parson. will get another large slice out of the patrimony of Mother Church.

In this bill there is no provision for the extinction of sinecure benefices ; but Lord STANLEY'S plan is adopted with slight varia- tions, and when, literally, only " two or three are gathered toge- ther," there is to be a parson in the midst of them. Lord STAN- LEY said, for a divine so overdone with work, 300/. a year was little enough ; but Lord Moiteent thinks that somewhat less

would be sufficient : and in this respect, and this only, his scheme of Church Reform differs from that of Lord STANLEY. The whole

of the" reform" involved in this part of the measure is a mockery; and it will not retard the downfal of the Irish Church for an hour. The resolution which Lord M0RPETI4 moved in Committee as a prelitninary to the introduction of the bi;l, whose chief provisions we have described, was passed without an additional word from either side of the House. The Tories, indeed, were rather puzzled how to act: the Appropriation-clause was not nakedly set forth

by Lord MORPETH, and the adoption of the STANLEY plan of dis- tribution was a blind. But, by and by, under the tuition of the Times, the Tories will find their old enemy lurking in the bill— the principle of "Church robbery" in all its pristine vitality.

There was to have been another Irish debate, on Tuesday, on Mr. WARD'S motion for a bill to provide funds for extensive emi-

gration, by putting the Colonial Waste Lands under the control of a Board of Management responsible to Parliament; but the Ministerial dread of encountering this subject, and the general reluctance to undergo a Currency di-cussion which Mr. Arrw000 bad provided as a part of the evening's bill of fare, cut short the proceedings, and at an early hour the House was " counted out." The Government, however, will find it no easy matter to shake off Mr. WARD; who has placed on the Order-book a notice, that he shall move the adoption of the resolutions of the Colonial Lands Committee of last session, as an amendment to the order of the day for going into Committee on the Irish Poor Bill.

The Libel-law is to remain in statu quo—that is, a mass of ab- surdity, untertainty, and injustice. Nobody denounces it with

more of seeming zeal than his Majesty's Attorney-General. Then why does not Sir Joust CAMPBELL strive to amend this bad law ? He really cannot find an opportunity for the work,—Mr. PETER Borermwiem occupies so much of the time of the House with spe- culations about a convocation of the clergy ! This was the excuse of Sir Joust on Wednesday, when Mr. O'CoNsntm. moved the second reading of his bill "to secure the Liberty of the Press." But Sir JOHN is a legal "dog in the manger;'—he will lint or cannot reform the law of libel himself, and he will not anew any

one else to do it. He found many faults with Mr.O'Commitu.'s bill in the course of a very disingenuous and carping speech; and when Mr. O'CommELL offered to refer his measure to a Select Comm ittee, where Sir JOHN, free from interruption by Mr. PETER BORTH- WICK, might suggest alterations and improvements,—" Oh, no," said Sir JOHN ; " your bill is too bad to be mended ; I am very much disappointed in it ; your name will not go down to posterity with those of Fox and Erskine ; though the existing law is exe- crably bad, I won't let you try-to make it better ; and in aliort,'It must remain as it is until I can find time to bring in a libel bill

myself." Such is the pith of Sir JOHN CAMPBELL'S argument for refusing permission to a lawyer of great eminence, supported in the main by another eminent lawyer—Sir F. POLLOCK—to attempt an improvement of the law of libel ; and the House of' Commons, to its shame, by a majority of 55 to 47, rejected Mr. O'CONNELL'S bill.

In spite of the Duke of WELLINGTON and the Bishops, there is some prospect that the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge will have to submit to a commission of inquiry. On Thursday, Mr. Flotsam moved an address to the King to issue a cunjusissigq.

for that purpose; and withdrew it only on the understanding that the Crown, having, as Mr. SPRING Rice maintained, the un- doubted right, would exercise the power of appointing a com- mission. From the speeches of Lord Itsarsoa and Mr. PBYME it is evident that a very strong case exists for legislative interierenee with the Universities. The apologists for Oxford and Cambridge are driven to all sorts of disgraceful shifts to palliate the charges brought against the present system. For instance, godly Mr. GOULBURN quoted PALEY'S sophistical defence of perjury ; and, in defiance of the plain meaning of words, argued that t

ginal founders of colleges must have intended somet g Ivry different from the declared intentions of their wills and Xttlements. A tierce battle will. no doubt be fought for Univesetrelfasesi-

but the light of day will soon be let in upon them, and all the cunning of the Caput and the valour of Fellows exrectant will not avail for their preservation.

Sir ANDREW AGNEW was indulged, on Thursday, with leave to bring in another of his Sabbath bills; only, however, that it

may be thrown out with more deliberation at a later stage. Neither the House nor the public can stomach the mixture of cant and profanity, injustice and folly, which this mean-witted

Member annually serves up under cover of a regard for the Lord's day. The discussion, however, was rather amusing. To do him justice, Sir ANDREW AGNEW does make a little fun in a dull House.

Mr. Pouterr THOMSON has gained golden opinions from the squirearchy by his opposition to Mr. ROBINSON'S scheme for grinding wheat in bond, for exportation in the shape of flour and biscuits. Mr. ROBINSON proposed that a quantity of corn should be taken out of bond, duty-free, equivalent to an amount of flour and biscuits exported : that is—if 100 pounds of wheat on the average produced 90 pounds of flour, for every 90 pounds of flour exported 100 pounds of wheat should be taken out of bond. But Mr. Tito/ascii.; said, that the wheat taken out of bond would be of a quality that would yield more than the average quantity of flour, and that the consequence would be extensive fraud : he was against the Corn-laws, but God forbid that he should get rid of them by a side-wind ! At this nice notion of the Member for Manchester the squires cackled, as well they might. The Corn- law gentry are not so very punctilious. They get all they can on every tack, trimming and sailing their vessel like skilful pirates. We should heartily rejoice to get rid of the Corn-laws by any sort of breeze from any quarter ; but Mr. ROBINSON, who lets loose a soft zephyr, will not prevail against them. The squires laughed at him and his cunning cajolery. He no doubt thought to puzzle them with a motion, the real bearing of which they were slow to comprehend, and Mr. ROBINSON MOW to explain ; but when they did find out what its drift was, they rejected it, by a vote of 108 to 43. Go right a-head the next time, Mr. ROBINSON; and the Manchester constituency may supply steam.