POSTSCRIPT.
SATURDAY NIGHT.
The House of Commons, last night, devoted another evening to the great Irish debate. The speakers in favour of Lord John Russell's motion were, Captain BERNAL, Mr. WARD, Sergeant MURPHY, Mr. CHARLES BULLER ; against it, Mr. DL9RAELI, Colonel CONOLLY, Mr. BICKHAM ESCOTT, Lord STANLEY.
Mr. DISRAELI made an ingenious and amusing speech of the "Young England" species ; contending that the origin of Irish oppression was not Protestantism, but Puritanism ; and that the principle of Whiggery is aristocratic, of Toryism democratic, true Toryism being the fittest policy to settle the grievances of Ireland. Sir Robert Peel had achieved results as " difficult " as the settlement of Ireland : he had reconstructed
the Tory party ; he had removed prejudices as strong as those of Ireland: there he now sat, with a Secretary of State on each side of him, [Lord Stanley and Sir James Graham,] whose prejudices he had suc- ceeded in removing. (Great laughter.) Their accession was a great gain ; and the example was very encouraging. (Repeated laughter.) But it would be necessary for the Minister to take the lead, if he would not be driven.
Mr. CHARLES BULLER imparted breadth and vividness to the Opposition view of Ireland ; declaring the Irish Roman Catholics to be permanently alienated from England, and held in check as the Lombards by Austria, the Poles by Russia. Ile forcibly brought out the futility, the mischief, the costliness of the present method of treating Ireland—an obstacle to all improvement : and he drew a moral resembling Lord Howick's, that the religious grievance must be primarily removed; only he fixed defi- nitively on the method of doing so--abolishing the Establishment, and paying the Protestant clergy in the manner of a regiurn donum. Lord STANLEY stood at bay ; defending Government generally, with fierce retaliatory blows all round ; his matter resembling Sir James Graham's, his manner more angry and unconceding. He read an affi- davit by Mr. Kemmis, the Crown Solicitor in Ireland, corroborating Sir James Graham's explanation about the Jury. He defended his own conduct, by insisting that an accurate registration of voters is not incon- sistent with an extension of franchise. He resolutely adhered to the maintenance of the Irish Protestant Establishment ; reading, in solemn silence, the oath for Catholic Members, and putting it to their con- sciences whether they could vote against that Church.
The debate was adjourned till Monday.
A Select Committee on Statutes relative to Gaming was appointed.
In the House of Peers, Lord Denman corrected the Times and Mr. Ferrand, who, apropos to a Poor-law question, had represented him as saying, in delivering a judgment, that "there are some cases in which it is necessary to break in upon an act of Parliament, and upon that which may have existed from all time ": what he did say, as set down by the reporter of his Court, was—" that in some eases, to meet the provi- sions of a statute, it was necessary to break in upon an established principle ; but that no such necessity existed here."
Lord BROUGHAM presented a petition from Lord Dandonald, praying an extension of time in his patent for rotary naval steam-engines ; thirteen years of which have elapsed before bringing the invention to bear. A disposition to comply was generally evinced by the House.
The Duke of RICHMOND introduced a bill to indemnify witnesses be- fore the Committee on Gambling ; who hesitate to give evidence for fear of consequences to themselves. Lord CAMPBELL said that their disclosures would astonish the public.
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