NEWS OF THE WEEK.
THE discussions in the House of Commons, this week, have not been deficient either in variety or interest. Along with other and minor,matters, they have embraced the Income-tax, Church- rites, Ireland, the Colonies, Smithfield Market, and the mode of dealing with places like St. Alban's, the Smithfields of our electoral sysietn. Among these, the most prominent place must be assigned to the debate on Colonial expenditure, for the width of its scope and the precision and ripeness of the views developed by the Mem- ber who raised it.
In a speech replete with information, compressed and arranged with unsurpassed severity of judgment and logic, and imbued with a thoroughly practical spirit, Sir William Molesworth unfolded a system of Colonial administration and of protec- tion for our commercial marine. He explained how the Mili- tary or Naval stations, such as Gibraltar and Malta, are en- tirely independent of our Colonial empire, and maintained for a different purpose. They are the stations of the naval police we keep on foot to preserve the peace of the high seas ; they are har- bours of refuge for our merchantmen from storms both of weather and war ; if we had fewer colonies we might need more "stations." They are legitimate objects of exclusively Imperial expenditure. The Colonies, on the other hand, are offsets from the Mother- country ; English municipalities as it were, scattered over the -whole world, outside of our territorial boundaries. In time of peace they require no military establishments except to guard against internal riots, or aggressions from savage tribes on their frontiers. These are strictly matters of local police ; and as the expediency of conceding local self-government to all such dependencies is now generally recognized, the equity of leaving them to provide for the maintenance of this local police in time of peace follows as a corollary. An exception was made by Sir William Molesworth in behalf of those settlements to which convicts are sent. Upon this view of these two classes of dependencies Sir William based his proposal for im- parting more system, efficiency, and economy, to the management of both. He recommended that the military or naval stations should be limited to such as are absolutely necessary ; that those which from their territorial extent are inapplicable to this purpose, or which are situated out of the highway of commerce' should be abandoned. He recommended that measures should be adopted for conceding to all our Colonies the powers of local self-government ; and that this being effected, the charge of supporting any military establishment they might deem necessary in time of peace should be devolved upon them. The policy thus advocated contemplates no abandonment of our commercial empire or our naval ascendancy on the ocean ; it provides for making the management of the one more efficient and for perpetuating the other, by substituting the ties of affection and a sense of common interests and equal liberties as the means of binding our Colonies to us, in lieu of Colo- nial Office meddling and brute force. It contemplates the mainte- nance of Great Britain as a first-rate power—not leaving her to sink into a second or third rate. These large and statesmanlike views were opposed by Mr. Hawes and Lord John Russell in a spirit of sin- gular disingenuousness. Both had recourse to the subterfuge of af- fecting to misunderstand the mover's objects and the necessary con- sequences of the policy he recommended. They represented him as advising the abandonment of our Colonial empire, and diverged into pathetic declamation on the results of such a fatal policy. They endeavoured to frighten their auditors by stories of other powers seizing upon the Colonies it was proposed to throw loose upon the world. This misrepresentation, these bugbears, were ably exposed by Mr. Adderley ; and Mr. Cobden clearly showed how much the economy that would result from Sir Wil- liam Molesworth's policy had been undervalued. The saving, in. fact, would amount to a million and a half per annum directly ; a
sum that would be much increased by the consequent retrench- ment in works, pensions, and half-pay. The debate was adjourned ; and though it would perhaps be too much to expect immediate success to the motion, its discussion cannot fail to bear fruits.
The practised champions of Colonial Reform cannot fail to profit by the gigantic blunder with which Lord John Russell laid his posi- tion open. No man has argued so well on Sir William Molesworth's side as the Premier, and the House should be made, next week, to feel the force of the argument. It was not a new one ; it was but an application of the "measures from time to time suited to the occasion" principle, which Lord John hugs with a singleness of idea indicative of gathering years. But one might have expected him to be more guarded at this particular juncture. You could not, he contended, have done for Canada, ten years ago, what is now claimed for other colonies ; and "perhaps ten years hence "—Ay, ten years hence! Then, indeed, other colonies may have attained ihe position which Canada now occupies : but at what cost? Lord John's dilatory plea amounts to a deliberate choice of a process like that through which Canada has conquered for herself representative and responsible government—that is, rebellion, warpodshed, and waste. Rather than profit by that experience, rag-ger than anticipate the compulsory surrender of popular measnres, Lord John prefers to leave such reforms to re- bellious extertion : and such is the policy for which he invites the concurrence of the English Commons !
The debate on the proposal to renew the unmodified Income-tax for three years was principally remarkable as illustrating the utter want of a decided view and policy among the Stanleyites. Mr. Herries deprecated the mixing of the Free-trade controversy with his motion ; but Mr. Booker and Mr. Spooner frankly admitted that it was merely an attempt to open the door slyly to let Pro- tection in again. Mr. T. Baring's speech, undeniably the ablest on his side of the House, clearly demonstrated the expediency of re- taining an improved Income-tax, though it was ostensibly meant to support Mr. Herries's proposal to do away with the impost al- together. The Ministerial majority was the difference between 230 and 278-48. " Liberals " are crying that the amended Budget has " saved " Ministers; and there is once more a disposition among all but the Irish Catholics, to unite in retaining Lord John as Premier.
Mr. Trelawney's exposure of the folly and danger of postponing a settlement of the irritating question of Church-rates had ,the effect of inducing Lord John Russell to grant a Committee on the subject. The Premier is liberal, for the nonce, in his grants of Committees. He has qiven Mr. Milner Gibson one on the Taxes on Knowledge ; and he is himself about to ask one on the relations of the Cape colony to the Caffre tribes. These Committees are a stale Whig dodge. Their value was placed in a strong light by the statement of Sir William Somerville in the debate on Irish distress, that since 1840 thirteen Commissions have been issued, and sixty-three Committees appointed, to inquire into Irish affairs. 'What practical benefit has been derived from them P This same Irish debate afforded a curious but melancholy exhibition of Irish statesmanship : Sir W. Barron and Sir Lucius O'Brien on the one hand, Mr. Min O'Connell and Mr. Reynolds on the other, sup- ported the motion of the first-named gentleman by averments and arguments that reciprocally disproved each other. The Irish com- plain of the want of efficient legislation for their country; among their hundred-and-five Members, have there been more than two at most, since 1832, who have shown themselves able to present an intelligible truthful view of the condition of the island in Parlia- ment, or recommend one practicable measure for its benefit? With regard to Smithfield, the House was called upon to judge of the comparative merits of a definite though questionable scheme for its improvement,oted by the Corporation of London, and an utterly vague andirZractical one, promoted by her Majesty's Government. The former was rejected with little ceremony, and the latter entertained.
In the Upper House, Lord Brougham's County Courts Bill has made considerable progress, though not undamaged by a strenuous opposition from the Chancellor, which augurs ill for Lord Truro's disposition and capacity as a law reformer.
