Parliament meets next Thursday, and rumours are already floating about
as to the business which will be placed before it. In reality, probably nothing will be talked of but Ireland— how Ai you discuss patiently with a grain of sand in your eye P—but the Government, it is believed, will propose a strong reform of Procedure, a Bill to facilitate the re- pression of crime in Ireland, a Bill for the better govern- ment of counties, a Bill for facilitating the transfer of land, and a Bill for revising railway rates, with the object, we presume, of suppressing unfair preferences. These are all healthy and useful measures; but how many of them will be so much as discussed P It is useless to prophesy abut a Session, which always takes its own way ; but if the Govern- ment really reforms Procedure, and so sets the House of Commons free, and prohibits boycotting, it will have done all that is imperatively necessary, and more than we expect. As things now stand, Governments propose and Mr. Parnell dis- poses; and until the Closure is carried in its most drastic and easily applied form, there will be no change in that.
