NEWS OF THE WEEK.
THE remodelled, or as it is ironically termed, the amended Ca- binet, assembled their supporters "in deep divan' in Downing Street, on Monday afternoon. There the Ministers explained their plan of operations for the ensuing night ; and there the real, the pstent arguments by which it was to be defended, were laid before the trembling expectants of a dissolution, and defeat at the next elections. It is at these meetings, from which their consti- tuents are excluded, that Members of Parliament really determine the fate of great questions. What follows in the House of Com- mons is mere acting—the denouement being previously arranged behind the curtain. Thus it was on Monday afternoon, and in the still more private conclaves which preceded the general muster. Members were made aware, that an adoption of Mr. Warns's Reso- lution would oblige them to concur in some measure wherein that principle was enforced; that such a measure would be rejected by the Lords ; that a resignation of the Cabinet, the accession of the Tories, and (awful consummation !) a premature dissolution of Parliament, might then follow in rapid succession. No wonder that the majority of the conscience-struck Members were terri- fied at this fearful prospect. Disgrace and defeat, to be dealt to them on the one hand by the indignant and duped Reformers of England, on the other by the active and vindictive Anti-Reformers, arose palpably in the deeply-shaded background : and, full of eager gratitude, they grasped the hand, which the noble Chan- cellor of the Exchequer (sighing all the while himself, poor man ! for his clover fields and Alderney cows) outstretched to save them. It was resolved then, to negative indirectly Mr. WARDS Resolution; and Ministers were prepared with a decent excuse for the deed. By great • exertions, a Royal Commission had been got out in the course of the morning, the professed object of which is to inquire into the doubtful fact (the truth of which the Whigs have been proclaiming in language the most vehement for a quarter of a century at the least), whether the revenues of the Irish Church were after all greater than was 'requisite or becoming, under the circumstances in which that Church is placed: This is the main professed design of the Commission ; but its members are also instructed to furnish an immense mass of other details relating to the comparative numbers of the various sects, their increase or diminution, the residence, non-residence, income, and efficiency or inefficiency, of the spiritual persons who pocket the contributions and ought to take care of the souls of the Irish population. Behold, cried Lord ALTHORP, the far-reaching views and active philanthropy of Ministers! The appointment of a Commission was merely an ulterior part of Mr. WARD'S project, but we have stolen a march upon him ; and while he has been declaiming upon principles, we have taken an important and decisive step towards carrying those principles into effect: what need, then, is there of affirming merely the truth of
a proposition upon which we are absolutely acting? This was the sum and substance of the arguments urged in the subsequent de-
bate in the House, in opposition to Mr. WARD'S Resolution, in the successive speeches of Lord A LTHORP, Lord OH N R CSSE L, Mr. SPRING RICE, MT. CHARLES GRANT, Lord PALMERSTON, and Mr. ELLICE.
• TO this argument was opposed the unanswerable reply—" If you Concede the principle, why not affirm it? What is the reason that you shrink from recording your avowed opinions on the jour- nals of the House, thus placing your solemn sanction of thern be- :yowl all doubt and cavil ? The Commission that you boast of
would be a piece of waste paper to-morrow, were Mr. STANLEY and his Church-sinecure-loving friends, or Sir ROBERT PEEL and his Conservative allies, to supersede you. You not only ask the House of Commons to place confidence in you, but go the uncon- scionable length of demanding that it should rely upon your con- tinuance in office—upon the stability of an .Administration Which fell to pieces a few days ago, and has only been Patched up to
meet the present etnergeacy. As to any informality or want of logical j recision in the Resolution, we are willing to remodel and alter it ill any way, so that it shall still express the grand funda- mental principle, acknowledged by yourselves to be indisputable, that the so-called property of the Church is in point of fact at the disposal of the Legislature." Ministers and their Majority
had a rejoinder in pet/u, as we have explained above i • but it
was one which they could not for shame avow, though they voted
on the strength of it. The Tories swelled the ranks of the tri- umphant party; and Lord ALTIIORP carried the " previous ques- tion," on a di :ision, by 396 to l20.
Thus the question for the present is cushioned. We say this advisedly ; for the whole proceeding was a mere trick to obtain a respite. What can we expect from this Commission? By Mr. WARD'S plan, it should be remembered, the Ecclesiastical Com- missioners, appointed last year under the Church Temporalities
Bill (which was passed without the previous inquiries now deemed
so necessary), would have been empowered to correct abuses gra- dually, to take up and consider the case of each separate bishop- rick, benefice, or other preferment, as the death of the incumbeats brought them successively under notice. They would have re- ferred to Mr. WARD'S Act, and ascertained under which of its provisions tire case in question fell. After an age of inquiry,* it would still be a point for Parliament to settle, how large a po- pulation should be requisite to form a Protestant parish with a Protestant parson. That point can be as well settled this week, as after the interminable folios of the new Commission shall have been published, or even read. In a word, Mr. WARD'S plan was admirably calculated to effect a constant progressive reform of the giant grievance of Ireland. The Government plan is calculated to stave off the commencement of reform for many years.
Among the speeches delivered during the debate, that of Mr. STANLEY was the most remarkable. It was full of fiery eloquence, and professions of devotion to the four' of Christianity which is part and parcel of the law of the land. Mr. STANLEY took the High Church ground, and may almost be said to have assumed his natural position upon it, as the leader of the High •Church party. Tory politics and High Church principles have ahnost invariably been connected in the creed of public men ; and we fully expect to find Mr. STANLEY a deserter from the Whig prin- ciples of his family, in the course of a short interval of vacillation. He appears to unite the bigotry of Lams with no inconsiderable portion of the talents of STRAFFOltD. In the days of those worthies, he would indeed have been a formidable person : he is now, being out of the Cabinet, comparatively harmless. - Air. O'CONNELL delivered a manly and impressive speech. He was acute, sarcastic, amusing, and powerfully argumentative, by turns.
Mr. WARD stood fast to his guns. He was decided, though mild in his beaming; and has gained golden opinions from his brother Members aial the Reformers of Great Britain and Ireland, by the whole of his conduct, on what must have been, to a person of his habits and connexions, a peculiarly trying occasion. Sir ROBERT PEEL made much ado about nothing. The first part of his speech was full of egotism and self-importance ; and we may look in vain for the enunciation of one valuable principle from the beginning of his harangue to the close.
All the Ministers distinctly avowed the principle that the State had a right to dispose of Church property—as it is termed. There was very little variety in their speeches; and so far these may be taken in confirmation of their assertion, that the Cabinet is now united on this point.
Earl GREY and Lord Baouenass, in the House of Peers last 'night, expressed the same opinions as their colleagues in the Commons; though the language of Lord BROUGHAM was by no means so direct and explicit as that of Earl GREY. Thus we see that the Ministers individually are as much pledged to the principle of Mr. WAsn's Resolution as if they had actually voted firs it. But the Parliamentary sanction is wanting. Upon referring to the Legislative records, all that appears is, that a ques- tion of the utmost present importance was submitted to the house of Commons, awl that the House by a great majority refused to pro- nounce judgment. The mode in which Ministers have dealt with this subject is characteristic of their policy. They never go the direct way to work. They never avow their true motives or assign the just reasons. Their course is shuffling and tortuous, beyond that of any Ministry of recent times. Several aliases have been bestowed upon this Cabinet : it has been termed the Lansdowne, the Auckland, the Lath and Plaster Adminisft•ation : but if we may be allowed to furnish our contribution to the e4libilirsan4rst complimentary appellatives, for the reasons we AK,- 41S•etrts should call it the " TRICKY MINISTRY." I
•• •
• The Standard caileulatei that it will require a period of ei41,4fitutd,tolospect arid • . 3 'report upon the 2500 parishes,
The grand Parliamentary subject of the week is that which we have so fully commented upon; but the House of Commons has been unusually busy, and many other questions of interest and importance have occupied its attention.
The Latour Rate Bill was rejected on Wednesday, by a ma- jority of 80 to 36. We are glad of this ; for the principle of the bill, which is to force a certain number of labourers on men who could not employ them profitably (for if they could employ them to advantage there would be no need of compulsion), is as bad and unsound a principle as can be imagined. The bill is one of those little peddling attempts at a reform of great abuses which in the end aggravate the evil, though they may produce some relief for a short time in particular districts.
Mr. Btrexiston AM, on Tuesday, succeeded in procuring the ap- pointment of a Select Committee to inquire into the means of preventing the spread of drunkenness among the labouring classes. This vice Mr. BUCKINGHAM maintains to be a growing one in the land; but he did not substantiate his opinion by proof. Indeed it would have been difficult; for we cannot arrive at any correct statement of the amount of spirituous liquors consumed before the late reduction of duty, as millions of gallons were illegally distilled and disposed of. Since the business of illicit distillation has been in a great measure broken up, the increase of consumption has neither been rapid nor steady. But the prin- cipal reason of our disbelief in any asserted change for the worse in the morals of the great mass of the people, is that the value of human life has sensibly improved in this country. The average life of Englishmen is longer. The gains of Life Assurance com- panies, and the losses of the Government by their operations in annuities, prove this conclusively, were there no other evidence. It will not be denied that intemperate habits shorten life; and if men live longer in England than formerly, it is fair to assume that they arc at least not more intemperate than their forefathers. Mr. BUCKINGHAM'S Committee, however, will do no harm, unless the result of its labours should be further meddling with the habits and enjoyments of the working classes.
A Committee to inquire into the state of Education in England and Wales, and the effect of the recent Parliamentary grants for the building of school-houses, was also appointed on Tuesday, on the motion of Mr. ROEBUCK, slightly modified at the suggestion of Lord ALTHORP. The discussion was enlivened by a paradoxical and amusing speech from Mr. ConnErr, who is a determined foe to all plans for educating the labouring classes. His arguments, as Lord ALTHORP remarked, were applicable to bad, not good edu- cation. They are now almost obsolete, and find little favour even on the bench of Bishops. Mr. COBBETT has been informed by the Recorder of New York, that the educated criminals (in New York, we presume) far outnumber the uneducated; and Mr. Rosnucts intimated his disbelief of the fact. But we have little doubt of its correctness. Education is no absolute preventive of crime; and in a country where nineteen adults out of twenty can read and write, it is to be expected that the majority of criminals will belong to what is called the educated class. Mr. Conaster and his friend the Recorder should place the educated on one side, and the uneducated on the other ; and then inform Us what proportion the criminals of each class bear to the whole number of it.
We rejoice that Mr. EWART'S bill for allowing prisoners accused of felony the benefit of their counsel's eloquence, is likely to receive the sanction of the House of Commons at least. It was read a second time on Wednesday, after a feeble and unfounded opposition from Mr. POULTER and Sergeant SPANKIE. If the electors of Finsbury do not get rid of the latter gentleman on the first opportunity, we shall have a very poor opinion of their inde- pendence and discernment : he is one of the most obstinate bigots and persevering foes to the improvement of existing institu- tions, within the walls of Parliament. It is difficult to conceive how any person of common humanity can defend a practice which deprives the most helpless creatures in existence of means essen- tial to prove their innocence, when death is the consequence of their failure to prove it. Mr. POLLOCK mentioned several in- stances, which came within his own knowledge, of men being found guilty and condemned to death solely in consequence of being deprived of their counsel's address to the jury. Lord ALTHORP made a brief and sensible speech for the bill; and Mr. O'CONNELL'S rhetorical powers were exerted with fine effect, in narrating an affecting story of the legal murder of some poor wretches in Ireland, who fell victims to the barbarous regulation which Mr. EWART'S bill is intended to abolish.
A feeble attack on what is called the Reciprocity system was made by Mr. G. F. Yousna, on Thursday. This gentleman was on that occasion the mouthsiece of the Shipowners; who, as he allirms, are unable to compete with foreigners, owing to the greater expense of building vessels in British than in foreign ports. "Put us," he says, "on an equal footing with foreigners in this respect, and we will not complain of your Reciprocity sys- tem." To this it was triumphantly replied by Mr. PousErr THOMSON, that Ministers are willing to furnish the shipbuilders with cheap and excellent Baltic timber, but that they insist upon going to Canada to provide themselves with dear and inferior ma- terials. This is quite enough to settle the question as regards the shipping interest. When they will consent to a repeal of the duties on Norway timber, then it will be time enough to complain of the cost of shipbuilding.
Some progress was made in the Poor-Law Bill last night. Eleven clauses were agreed to in Committee, without any amend- ment of consequence.
