NEWS OF THE WEEK.

THE question raised by Mr. Cardwell's motion has not been settled so quickly in the House of Commons as Lord Shaftesbury's was in the House of Lords. The greater abundance of speakers

engendered opportunities for prolongation, which decidedly suited the tactics of Ministers, and opened the way for many in- terests adverse to those of the leading Oppositionists. Justice, party feeling, interested motives, and personal crotchet, de- veloped a strange alliance against the scarcely less novel com- bination on the side of Mr. Cardwell ; and the consequence was, a political entanglement exceeding anything that the present generation has witnessed. The affair is so intricate that it is almost difficult to put the story of it in a simple strain. On Friday last, Mr. Cardwell invited the . House of Commons, while waiving any opinion on Lord Canning's proclamation, to censure Lord Ellenborough's letter as tending to weaken the au- thority of the Governor-General, and to encourage armed resis- tance. Our postscript reported the progress of the debate down to the first adjourn' ment ; the most conspicuous fact which came out being, that Mr. Cardwell was sustained by the united support of Lord Palmerston and Lord John Russell : who dined together under Lord Palmerston's roof on the same evening. The re- ported union on that side therefore had been so far accomplished. On subsequent evenings, even when the main debate stood adjourned, Members still seized the occasion to endeavour to extract that note which Mr. Vernon Smith was accused of suppressing ; and that right honourable gentleman has had on successive days to run the gauntlet of sarcastic inquiry, objur- gatory 'attack, and hooting. But a new turn was given to the debate itself, when Mr. Roebuck appeared as an independent vindicator of Lord Ellenborough's " honest " despatch, condemn- ing an unprecedented confiscation ; while the Tribune of the people exposed the intrigues of the Opposition to restore the " cashiered " Ministry of Lord Palmerston. As the debate went on, the party element came out much more distinctly, especially on the Ministerial side ; from which Sir Robert Peel flung one of the most amusing and damaging of his speeches, and Mr. Whiteside poured forth an oration calculated to shake the bar of Dublin to its very wigs. Still the Opposition had hopes. It was an untoward event that Sir Charles Napier insisted upon introducing on the Tuesday his motion on the subject of manning the navy. As he would not give way, other Members could not be deprived of their right of moving ; so that Tuesday became private property. Not entirely ; for a little more business was done, still favourably to Ministers—.a conversation on the Vernon Smith note and the Oude Proclamation, with the opinions of Sir Colin Campbell and other persons adverse to that course of policy. Furthermore, a ques- tion by Mr. Dillwyn, whether his motion—approving of Lord Canning's conduct down to the Proclamation, and expressly with- holding all opinion on that document—would be supported by Ministers as a substantive proposition ? Here was an opportu- nity for Ministers to attach to their party, with an exchange of

positive support, a small but valuable off-lying party of Independ- ents; and Mr. Disraeli at once agreed. The bargain was truly laughable : but it abstracted from the calculated resources of the constituted Opposition.

Wednesday was the Derby day : and a national usage again enabled Ministers to tide over another twenty-four hours.

Thursday began with increased hopes of success in their waiting race. Hopes not diminished when Lord Palmerston brought for ward the suppressed note, with a companion note—both in such harm- less terms as to raise the question, why suppress them ? Hopes not diminished when Mr. John Bright entered the ring as the wholesale censor of Lord Canning in his public capacity, the thoroughgoing vindicator of Lord Ellenborough's despatch ; or when Sir James Graham with a weighty array of authorities stood out to vindicate Lord Ellenborough's despatch in its sub- stance. There can be no doubt that the great strength of the debating speeches lay on the side of Ministers.

Even at the eleventh hour new amendments were brought forward by Mr. Dunlop and Mr. Rich—twin resolutions authorizing Governor-General Canning to continue. And then came despatches from India—Lord Canning's " reasons " and Sir James Outram's "representations." Here were the things which Ministers were accused of not awaiting, supplying the " information " claimed by the Opposition,—and not unwelcome to Ministers when it did arrive.

The denouement occurred last night, but not in the shape of a division. Mr. Cardwell, appealed to from different quarters, and under the judicious advice of Lord Palmerston, who saw that the whole plan of attack had been dislocated, withdrew his motion.

In the present temper of the public and official mind, the de- bate on the manning of the Navy is likely to be followed by practical results. Sir Charles Napier not only exposed the fact that we are deficient in seamen to put our war-ships in motion as well as to work them, but he showed that we have undone some of the measures already taken to keep up an effective naval corps. For instance, the men engaged for " continuous service" have been discharged. The excuse has been before given —that several of the men became reluctant to continue after they had joined ; and it is unquestionably true that sailors are all the better for occasionally passing a period on shore. Still there can be no doubt, that our naval Army, if we may Call it so, has hitherto been allowed to depend too much- upon the vessels actually afloat, and has consisted too exclusively of men engaged for the job ; and our dissatisfaction at that state of things is not diminished when we learn that the Navy seldom draws many recruits from the merchant service. It is true that in the case of an "emergency," a great stimulus would be given to the manning of vessels, and probably from the merchant service ; but it is a bad plan to wait for emergencies. To do so is deliberately to go upon the principle of shutting the door when the steed is gone. Sir Charles Napier wished to include other subjects besides the raising of men, but he consented to limit the inquiry to that practical object ; and Admiral Duncombe, who had an amendment in favour of a committee, also gave way to the argument that a Royal Commission is the better machine, since it can be locomotive and can be composed of men who are not in the House of Commons, coupled with the assurance that it should not consist only of old Naval officers, but should include civilians. Perhaps the best guarantee for the good composition of the Commission lies in the character of Sir John Pakington.

Mr. Williams's resolution, declaring that real property and ecclesiastical property should bear the same probate and legacy duties as personal property, was of course thrown out. It too positively begged the question on a subject that has never been treated with sufficient comprehensiveness. There is much force in the argument that real property already bears a great amount of taxation which may well countervail the probate and. legacy duties. The fact is, that our excessively complicated system, guided by no simple or intelligible principle, scarcely enables us to know what proportion of taxes is borne by any particular ob-

ject or class of objects. Formerly, when Finance Ministers taxed everything as much as they could, there was a kind of empirical

approach to practical equality in taxation, but in a very disagree- able shape. No Minister, no Member, no financier out of office or of Parliament, could perform a greater public service than to put together some facts, or lay down some rules, for enabling us

to understand the equation of existing taxes. We should pro- _ bably find the incidence more equal than we have supposed, and where it is not we should know how to correct one evil without creating others.

Mr. John Locke's Bill to introduce uniformity of weights and measures in the one matter of corn broke down, from the praoti- eal difficulty of altering local usages. Perhaps it would be easier to decree new weights and measures for all classes of materials, at once, instead of proceeding o. in this bit by bit reform.

During the debates on the Conspiracy to Murder Bill an argu- ment was derived from Ireland, where it had been discovered that there still exists a law making conspiracy to murder a capi- tal offence : the said law, however, appears to have operated rather to prevent convictions, so that the severity of the statute has practically encouraged licence even in the trifling with mur- der. The subject was a mere parenthesis in the larger question of the French assassination, but Mr. Bland has revived it for a practical improvement in the Irish statute-book, and has willingly conceded it to the official hands of the Irish Attorney-General.

"Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown "—suddenly and peculiarly acquired. With all his power, the Emperor Napoleon finds himself not unfrequently at fault, and this week is full of disagreeable portents. The constituency of the Haut Rhin has set aside the official injunctions, pointing out a peculiar good boy —a man who imitates his grandfather, and ought therefore to be elected ; and the constituency has chosen instead that same Chevalier Migeon, who has been convicted of wearing the deco- ration of legion of honour—which he was not proved to have worn—and has, under the Imperial prosecution, been made a sort of petty martyr. The gigantic power of a Louis Napoleon is not enough absolutely to crush even a Migeon.

And the Emperor's own instruments turn against him. The sword he holds cuts his fingers. A Monsieur Hyene, a Sous- offitier, has brutally insulted and perhaps mortally wounded a M. Henri de Pene, a satirical writer who had bantered the Sous- officiers on want of skill in the management of their spurs amid ball-room flounces. Hyene was second with a principal whom De Pene had already fought, the renewed attack having all the appearance of a conspiracy to kill the writer, and exposing some- thing like a spirit of military hostility in a deadly shape to the civilian society of France.

And while the Emperor is undergoing these checks at home, the death of the Duchess of Orleans, who has immortalized her- self by her devotion as a widowed mother to the task of main- taining and vindicating the rights of her son, painfully reminds France that there are other claims to the throne, and other virtues besides those which at present find favour in the Imperial Court.

A new Eastern question has established itself for the inter- ference of the Western Powers. It promises to be entangled enough to make a good deal of diplomatic sport. By dint of their mountain wildness, the Montenegrins have maintained a quasi-independence though their territory merges in lands which are under the suzerainty of the Porte. They have been vindi- cating their independence, and not for the first time, by raids on the neighbouring land. It is reported of them that they have perpetrated a massacre on the Turks who were sent against them during an armistice. But since a " row " in that part of Europe might be dangerous for the peace of the continent, the Western Powers are about to interfere on behalf of the "status quo." Should they maintain that respectable position, it would amount, in Montenegro, to the continuance of perpetual expeditions of the Porte for the purpose of vindicating its suzerainty, with perpetual risings and raids of the Montenegrins to vindicate their independ- ence of law as well as the Porte.

The Indipendente of Turin, and " Subalpine," a correspondent of the Daily News, whose identity may easily be guessed, an- nounce an interesting event. The Government of the Duchess Regent of Parma has broken away from the restrictive and de- spotic Customs Union of Austria, and is about to join Sardinia in a Commercial Customs League ; the first step towards a na- tional union of Italy on a national basis. The important tendency of the event can scarcely be over-estimated. " Subalpiner points out a good opportunity for England to employ her in- fluence beneficially, by appointing a diplomatic agent to reside at the Court of Parma. It is an act which would be worth an army to the Italy of the Future.

Although Lord Derby did not win the race that is his name- sake, the national sport on the 19th served him a good turn, since it assisted him in prolonging the debate until it has been stretched over the entire political week. Cynics have levelled their sarcasms at the suspension of debating a question on which hung the fate of Empires ; but the complaint is not exactly cor- rect, for Tuesday night was taken up by obstinate private Mem-

berg, a say. Besides, would not relinquish iteir„. the interests of Epsom' survive ininistriM and questions ; and Members who refuse to attend the Dowini incur the penalty of being very "dull boys," It Una indeed a eomplaint on the part of many honourable gentlemen that while the House gave itself a holiday to attend Epsom, it did not extend the same favour to Select Committees which were invidiously allowed to sit, the adjournment notwithstanding.