NEWS OF THE WEEK.
TEE closing days of the session are characterized by activity of various kinds : much " business" is done, with not a little fuss- making. Lord MONTE&GLE'S exposition of the financial state of the country was a " mixed operation ": it might have been useful, but that it was palpably a mere party-move, with a dash of the natural desire in a retired Chancellor of the Exchequer to do a little of his old work for amusement's sake. His avowed object was to show, first, that whereas the late Opposition got into power by charging their opponents with gross financial blundering, they themselves had signalized their possession of office by still grosser blundering ; and secondly, that whereas chronic "deficiency" was charged on the late finances, it is an aggravated symptom in the present. The blundering he made good; only it must be confessed that Ministers had to deal with even greater difficulties than he so adroitly scrambled over,—and among them his own last " defi- elewey," numerous if not very thorough changes -in the Customs- tariff, the Chinese war, and the forgery in Lord MONTEAGLE'S own office. With all these drawbacks, however, and in spite of the ingenuity with which he dressed up a case in figures, be did not succeed in establishing a substantial deficiency. There appeared to be one in April, when he was silent ; and many of his repre- sentations hold good only of April. There was less appearance of a deficiency in July ; and it is doubtful whether now it is not quite made up, by the collection of Income-tax arrears due last year. He tried too to make out that the present Ministers had been guilty of peccadilloes like his own—tampering with Savings Banks funds, surreptitiously increasing the Permanent Debt, and so forth. The Commander-in-Chief replied to the Ex-Chancellor of the Exche- quer; the Finance Minister being in the other House, the Earl of Ripon ill : and the old soldier made so clear-headed a statement, so inexorably plain an array of intelligible facts to march down Lord MONTEAGLE'S figures, that his whole case was swept away— deficiency, Conservative imitation of Whig manceuvering, and all : so that the Duke has fairly persuaded sensitive folks on 'Change, that the country is by no means so embarrassed as it was, and that he is a greater financier than the professional gentlemen of the Exchequer !
The Lords have also discussed the grand measure which has occupied the latter part of the session in the Commons, the Irish Arms Bill ; but in a very different mode. The contest was not marked by that naked factiousness which was so discreditable in the Commons. There was even no substantial opposition, for no
motion was made against it. The most temperate and statesman- like view of the measure was taken by Lord LANSDOWNE ; who would not refuse the powers asked by Government, though he doubted the necessity or policy of the new portions, which are the really irritating parts : and, viewing it as the solitary measure of the session " connected with the pacification of Ireland," he felt bound to consider what it was not,—namely, it was not any kind of remedy for the ills of Ireland, which cannot much longer be post- poned; one of the first measures needed being provision for the Roman Catholic clergy. This is a fair and comprehensive view of the whole subject ; only it is curious that Lord LANSDOWNE did not contrive to inspire his friends when in power with the same views, instead of faith in empirical palliatives. From the main question the discussion turned upon the oath of Roman Catholic Members of Parliament to do nothing inimical to the Established Church. Lord CAMOTS began by asserting that he interpreted the oath so as not to apply to him who took it in his legislative capacity. This drew down upon him a scourging from Lord BEOIIGHAM, with all the sting of his satire,— previously exerted with no less activity on Lord MONTEAGLE, when he challenged a supplementary exposure of his own financial infee- cities by his attack on Ministers. Lord BEAUMONT, (whose ind pendence of apprehension may not improbably have been drawn up to concert-pitch by the strong screw of some gross vituperatio cast upon him from the Dublin Corn Exchange,) disclaimed Lord CAMOYS'S refinement, and took the oath in the simplest and widest acceptation of the terms, as restricting him from all interference with the Established Church. No doubt, that is the most obvious view of the force of the obligation implied in the terms : but how fdtile the attempt to admit a class of men to the Legislature, and yet taboo to them a class of subjects, of which the bounds cannot be defined ! The blame lies with those who made so serious an addition to the number of untenable oaths, that bring swearing into disrepute, as a trivial profanity, which may be kicked aside when endured for a moment pro forma, just as a dirty Bible is chucked about in a Police-court.
A bill has been introduced to enable Government, instead of calling out the whole class of Chelsea Pensioners in times of riot, to select in times of repose a picked number of volunteers, to revive the discipline of that number, and to place them under efficient military control when actually needed for service. The measure was the occasion of many odd scenes in the Commons. Mr. THOMAS DUNCOMBE sometimes has happy ideas, which he works out very well ; but it was not a happy idea to start at this as an addition to the " standing army "—an encroachment on the liberties of the people ; and to ransack debates of the last century and claptrap Whig speeches of a somewhat later period for obso- lete points of declamation about standing armies. Standing armies are very expensive ; but before they can become the engine of tyranny, the army must be the strongest body in the country, in physical and moral strength—as it was in decaying Rome, as it is in prostrate Spain. England is stronger than any army in the world. The new force is just what it looks—a constructive body of Special Constables, ready for use, with military organization and efficiency. Some nonsense was uttered about this force being worse than the Yeomanry ; as if any force could be worse than a avian master-class with swords put into their hands to sabre their contumacious workpeople and troublesome neighbours in the name of the State. The battle of the constitution is not to be fought in street-riots, but in peaceful elections— or, in extreme cases, on the regular field of battle ; and in either scene, the select Chelsea. Pensioners would be hors de combat. They will do better than ;aw Special Constables or grudge-inspired Yeomanry to suppress' street-riots, and will be a more manageable engine in the hands of the Executive for that particular purpose ; a very desirable purpose. The Libel Bill has passed through the mauling of the Common; riot without serious mutilation ; and the Attorney-General has the credit of doing all the damage. As sent down from the Lords, the bill put oral on the same footing with written slander; and thus removed a gross anomaly, which licenses the orator to spread de- famation abroad while the paltriest scribbler must be called strictly to account. There might perhaps have been some laxity of method in bringing the oral slanderer within the law ; but upon the whole the proposed change was useful. Sir FREDERICK POLLOCK was averse from it, and the vested interests of oral slander remain un- touched. Sir FREDERICK seems to have been principally actuated by a conservative deference for the rights of intemperate speech and indiscreet conversation ; which are duly protected from liability. But he did more. One clause proposed to make the plea of truth no justification for libel in a civil action, unless its utterance could be proved beneficial to the public : Sir FREDERICK POLLOCK in- clined to take the presence or absence of malice as the test of justi- fiableness; but further, he set his face against all change, and in- stead of mending the clause, ht, alisheel ii. The chief maincf th; residuary measure are, the greater protection afforded to honest newspapers, the restriction on infamous publications, and the ad- mission of the truth as a plea in criminal proceedings, if the publi- cation be "for the public benefit" : so that criminal proceedings are deprived of their most odious character—the exclusion of the truth. Criminal proceedings will be on a principle of common sense ; but an injured party will be unable to seek compensation at law in those cases where the gratuitous and malicious publi- cation of the " truth " is a real wrong. The mutilation of the Libel Bill—a bill so highly creditable to Lord CAMPBELL and his compeers—is Sir FREDERICK POLLOCK'S great work in Parliament this session.
Mr. CHARLES BULLER, in another speech of first-rate ability, has propounded a great measure of practical colonization ; solving a difficulty usually treated as insurmountable, by de- vising a method of rendering the vast tracts of appropriated waste lands in Canada available to the emigrants of this coun- try, yet preserving the control of the Colonial authorities, and even furthering the individual rights of the nominal holders. In brief, the plan is this : the Local Legislature to be invited. to cooperate with the Imperial Government in restoring to the Crown lands alienated but still waste ; those lands to be ap- praised, and their total value to be formed into a Government " stock "; debentures being issued to each owner for the amount of the present appraised value of his land, but not bearing interest, as no present income accrues from the land itself: on the resale of the lands by the Crown after a better system, a proportionate dividend to be paid on all debentures, in part redemption of the stock ; the rest of the proceeds to be expended in opening up and improving the country, by means of roads, bridges, churches, schools, and other amenities of civilized society ; and all these to be brought into rapid operation by a loan publicly guaranteed. Govern- ment, through Mr. Hora, the Colonial Under Secretary, in Lord STANLEY'S absence, promised to consider this plan ; it has already awakened an interest among practical men in London ; and the colonists are not unlikely to accept it as the only means yet sug- gested for rendering the waste lands profitable at once to the colony and the nominal owners. We look chiefly to the home interest of the project : if it be adopted, Canada, the chief of our nearest and most important colonies, may be made available fbr extended British settlement and trade, much sooner than sober observers would have believed a year ago. Foreign affairs have been touched upon. Mr. BAILLIE
CocH-
BANE has adopted Greece for his client, and has succeeded in elicit- ing the fact, that all the promises of regenerating that classic nation have been violated. Lord PALMERSTON put in the usual Whig " Thou canst not say that I did it " ; and Sir ROBERT PEEL assures us that something is being done to awaken the Greek Go- vernment to a sense of its responsibility. The most tangible good now promised is the payment of Greek bondholders ; a very good thing for them—but what of Greece ?
Lord PALMERSTON had a say about Servia, and English sub- serviency to Russia ; for on that score he seems emulous of his quondam foe Mr. URQUHART. He could not trap Sir ROBERT PEEL into any acknowledgment that English officers ought to cir- cumnavigate the globe on the chivalrous enterprise of setting the world to rights, wherever it is out of joint, by force of arms. Mr. DISRAELI, whose diplomatic studies seem to court if not to merit employment in that line, rode up, like the ancient foot-soldier, on the crupper of Lord PALMERSTON'S cheval de battaille, and dropped down to cut at Sir ROBERT from behind. His attack was smart, but useless. It provoked a funny rebuke from Lord SANDON ; who gravely scolded the " young Members" for presumption in differ- ing from their leaders. Lord SANDON can't abide special opinions : Members must take a whole class of party sentiments in a lump ; and unless they have precisely the same opinion that Sir ROBERT PEEL has about KARA GEORGEVITCH, and on all and each other point whereon men must think in 1843, they have no right to affect to be of his side in general—under pain of a reprimand from Lord Sermon! The best way to secure that uniformity of opinion would be for the constituencies only to elect a leader for each side of the House, and for the said leader to nominate his own " supporters."
