NEWS OF THE WEEK.
PARLIAMENT lingers between the interminable session and the unattainable recess, its attention pretty equally divided between the two. Worn out, anxious for rest, Members glance towards the country ; but work undone, momentous questions unsettled, recall their parting spirits. A newborn patriotic curiosity com- pelled them to be more minute than ever in their inquiries about the expenditure, insomuch that the business in Committee of Sup- ply was not finished till Wednesday ; yet at the last, the delay had become intolerable, and the Votes were hurried over much in the usual fashion. Two important reports on the Bank inquiry re- mained on the shelves clamouring, through Mr. Herries, for at- tention; but the cry Of the partridge in the stubble was not less touching. The waiting yacht urges the Royal departure; but the consciousness of neglected work exerts such influence that forty-two Members can still muster work, the great debate of the week. The longest lane, however, has its turning—the longest session must have its end; and the expectant white-bait floating in the Thames, who have been taught the sickening properties of hope deferred, will probably attain their honoured apotheosis in the Ministerial dinner today. The individual debates have not been striking—or striking only in the innocent earnestness of the Members who protract the dreary unrest of Parliament in this posthumous part of the sea- son. Mr. Herries has been endeavouring to pledge the Commons to "consider" the two reports on Banking, with a view to alter the act of 1844: but, as Mr. Drummond says, sufficient unto the session are the debates thereof : the House—fortified by a dex- terous speech from Sir Robert Peel, against the notion that com- mercial pressure, which compels thrift after loss, is an unmixed evil—declined to anticipate the business of next year. Mr. Ha- milton tried to get a demonstration against the system of Na- tional Education in Ireland, concerning which certain judicious persons among the Protestant clergy and gentry are vamping up a new agitation—Ireland so much wanting agitation just now !— but he only succeeded in eliciting a very datnnatory demonstra- tion against his movement, in the shape of an overwhelming ma- jority at the division.
Lord Denman has vainly moved the Lords to address the Crown in favour of new legal processes to put down the slave- trade ; the worthy Chief Justice displaying his philanthropy of heart and his impenetrability of mind with equal frankness and naivete. Hundreds of thousands of slaves have perished, fleets have scoured the seas, committees have inquired, in vain for him : he stands on the old ways, clings by the old notions, untaught and unteachable.
With the concurrence of Lord Lsnsdowne the Peers are to bang up the Borough Elections Bill, which illinisters adopted, but have not cordially vindicated.
