NEWS OF THE WEEK.
THE close of the session, and the general election, are fore- shadowed in the Parliamentary proceedings of the week. The dehatee have been hurried and brief. Members have scam- pered over even their own favourite subjects in haste to have done with it all; the few long speeches being performed by those who have set parts which they must carry out to the close, such as the old Anti-Poor-law orators. The approach of the election is seen in the increasing tenderness which makes speakers on all sides eschew hazardous topics, unless they be of a kind that is supposed to suit the popular humour. To leave matters in doubt is convenient : it confirms no fears, puts a final limit on no hopes. The subjects of Poor-Removal and Settlement are deferred to next session ; which will enable gentlemen on the hustings to use them how they please. Government has carried its Poor-law Administration Bill in the Commons,—not without a da- maging rub to the Premier, defeated in resisting a clause that was foisted on the bill to prevent separation of aged couples in workhouses. Mr. Strutt, Chief Railway Commis- sioner, drew attention to the amended bill for regulating the functions of the Railway Commission ; spoke for two hours in exposition and defence of his bill ; and then—withdrew it 1 That also is a subject which it is politic to leave unsettled. In all this bustle of "forwarding" bills and throwing them over- board, the weakness of the Government becomes formidably apparent. The Ministry seems to have no real power either to persuade or to command : it shows itself, in the last days of a Parliament elected under the Whig Administration of 1841, with- out power to attract recruits either by having set up the standard of any great popular cause, or by the prestige of a victorious energy
and boldness. •
