Before the portentous action and vicissitude in neighbouring countries, our
own Parliament pales its ineffectual fires; and al- though bills have proceeded, the talking has been comparatively scanty and tame. The Income-tax is still a leading subject, and the debate upon it proceeds while we write. Mr. Hume tried, on Monday, to limit the duration of the confessedly ill-arranged tax tdone year - and the discussion was adjourned. It afforded Sir RObert Peel an occasion for coining forth with his much-needed defence of Ministers; and incidentally he did *a little business for himself, by showing why' he imposed the Income-tax, and cor- recting a misconstruction of his' celebrated Elbing letter. Mr. Sharman Crawford has tried to repeal" the quarter-acre clause" of the new Irish Poor-law • a clause intended to prevent a man from being at once farmer and pauper and paying his rents out of the poor-rates—not an imaginary combination. The clause is said to be indulgently administered ; and the Commons refused to un- settle the new law. Mr. Anstey's Roman Catholic Relief Bill makes a slow progress on Wednesdays; still struggling in Com- mittee, with heated wrangling about the 'distinction between "treasonable bulls" and "innocent bulls," Irish " bulls " and in- tentional misrepresentation. Parliament seems' to be getting tired—and the Easter holydays are to be very late this year.
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