NEWS OF THE WEEK.

THE Times asserts that the leading Conservative Peers, assembled in conclave on the Queen's birthday, agreed to propose to a larger meeting to be held to-day (Saturday) a resolution pledging them to throw out the Irish Church Bill on the second reading,— (which is to be moved on Monday week, the 14th of June). We believe that the Times has been misinformed, unless, indeed, it has magnified the real fact intentionally—to glorify its prophetic reputation, which, of late years, has been of no account. Certainly no resolve was arrived at on Wednesday. We believe, however, that the representations made by the Irish Protestants to the English Peers,—representations, as it seems to us, characterized by almost ineffable folly and weakness,—have made a great impression on some of the leading Peers, and given rise to a delusive conception that there would be a popular force to fall back upon, which has disturbed their imagination. The rank and file Tories, too, are, it is said, getting headstrong, and taking the bit between their teeth. We have discussed elsewhere the exceeding dangerousness of this course, — the more dangerous because it would be known that the House of Lords know it to be useless, and, therefore, a mere burst of impotent wrath. If it be taken, however, politics will become again, for a short time, an interest of the first order. A struggle with the Peers, and the excitement that struggle will cause in Ireland, may, too probably indeed, be disastrous, but it will at least be a return to the old eager days.

The third reading of the Irish Church Bill in the Commons took place on Monday, after a somewhat lifeless debate. Mr. Holt, as representing, we suppose, the Lancashire reaction, moved the rejection of the Bill, and said nothing rememberable, unless it were his attack on the Liberals, who, he said, were liberal only with other people's property,—professed tolerance, but allied themselves with the most intolerant party in Europe,—admired the voluntary principle, liut grudged the Irish clergy the produce of the voluntary contributions of generations which bad passed away. The Opposition, he said, " would not deny their God at the bidding of any Party ;" they " would not assist in pulling down the British Constitution, but the historian of the future should give to the honourable gentlemen opposite the whole credit of having done their best to remove the main foundations of the noblest political structure the world had ever seen."

Lord Elcho took up his true position as a Tory,—though he Persists in calling himself independent,—in seconding the motion. His speech was even poorer than Mr. Molt's. He put the old taunt as to Mr. Bright's influence on the Government in a new form. Mr. Gladstone, he said, doubtless commanded the quarter-deck of the vessel of State with a most powerful and eloquent trumpet ; but these are the days of steam, and the real commander is in the engine-room, where Mr. Bright presides. Varying the simile, he said Mr. Gladstone used the bird-call, but Cardinal Cullen and Mr. Bright held the strings and secured the birds, and so forth. Lord Elcho is always ready at popular illustrations of a cheery but munstructive character. When he concluded by saying that if he had a hundred tongues he would, in the name of religious liberty, say " No " a hundred times to the third reading of the Bill, the

dismay with which the mere hypothesis of multiplying Lord Elcho'e chattering power by a hundred, filled the House was pathetic. Lord Elcho cannot be earnest. When he tries to be so, he only succeeds in exaggerating his own very harmless political vanity,— as in this feeble attempt, for instance, to express abhorrence of the Bill by conceiving himself with a hundred tongues saying ' no' a hundred times (10,000 times in all). What would St. James, with his profound horror of " the unruly member," have thought of a hundred such " members " as Lord Elcho'a, all working away at high pressure ?

Mr. Disraeli made a great and rather forced effort to predict civil war as the consequence of the Irish Church Bill,—drawing back from Lord Mayo's confession of last year as to the thoroughly dangerous state of Ireland, and speaking of Fenianism as a purely foreign growth, which needed no home remedy at all except steady perseverance in the beneficent policy which had prevailed since the Irish famine. Ile spoke of the Roman Catholic Church as "waiting in grim repose" on the subject of education, of their being encouraged to encroach, of the Protestant wrath and resentment, and of a disastrous civil war as the probable result. It was all a little forced. Mr. Disraeli has had a difficult role in resisting so often the measure of which he himself suggested the principle twenty-five years ago.

Mr. Gladstone was very happy in his reply,—especially in answering Mr. Disraeli's reproaches for his high-handedness in not meeting the Opposition half-way on the amendments ou disendowment proposed in Committee. The Prime Minister said he had really anxiously considered them, and carefully calculated the compensations proposed by Mr. Disraeli for this Church in misfortune ; but he found they were so calculated that diaendowment, as conducted by Mr. Disraeli, would leave the Irish Church in possession of a somewhat larger mass of property than it found it in possession of. " It appears that the right hon. gentleman had borne in mind the history of the patriarch Job. We all remember how the narrative of the life and sufferings of that excellent man commences with a touching account of his disendowment and of the admirable courage with which it was endured ; and how the narrative cheerily ends with an announcement that in the close of his life he had more stock and greater possessions than ever. This was the precise model on which the right honourable gentleman framed his amendments." Mr. Gladstone maintained that he had gained no credit for the really conciliatory steps that he had taken. Last year he had not ventured to propose, or even to contemplate giving the Disendowed Church all the private property of the last 200 years, as ho has done ; and the provisions for reorganizing the Church as a voluntary Church are liberal and most important. The whole speech was at once playful and powerful, breathing an air of conscious and deserved success.

The division gave a majority of 114 for Government, 361 to 247,—in a House (including Speaker and tellers) of 613. There were eleven pairs. Five Liberals were absent from illness, and three (Mr. Brocklehurst, Sir Robert Peel, and Mr. Tomline), we suppose, from apathy. Four Conservatives (Mr. Benyon, Mr. Maxwell, Lord Bingham, and Sir G. Jenkinson) were absent, the last named certainly not from apathy. Exactly three Conservatives and three Liberals changed sides (Mr. Butler-Johnstone, who voted for the Bill, counting, however, as a Liberal), and eleven seats are vacant. The three Liberals who voted with the Conservatives are Sir R. Palmer, Mr. R. Dalway, and Mr. E. J. Saunderson.

Sir Henry Rawlinson has found Eden. He maintains that the Babylonian documents in our possession will give us the whole history which is recorded in Genesis from the time of Abraham. The Garden of Eden, he asserts, is the primeval name of Babylon ; the rivers bore the very same names, and the Babylonian documents give an exact geographical description of the Garden of Eden,—i. e., of iteepography, not of the facts connected with it. The Flood, and the uilding of the Tower of Babel, are also amply.

illustrated in the Babylonian documents. We are not sure that the late Professor Hengstenberg, or the English Recordites, would approve of this discovery. If Eden is the old name for Babylon, a complete ordnance survey of the country may probably disprove the existence of any Blum guarded by cherubim and a flaming sword to keep the way of the tree of life. And surely it would be a great shock to them to find that not only has the tree of life disappeared, but that the Garden of Eden is actually tenanted now by a miserable Oriental peasantry, who look upon Pison and Gihon and Hiddekel and Euphrates only as so many water privileges for their thirsty land ?

The net result of the inferences drawn from the recent French Elections, after much discussion in both France and England, seems to be, that the moderates were censured not so much for their political creed as for their ill-success in contriving any great blow against the Administration,—rejected as inefficient enemies rather than as wrong-headed politicians. The French critic who has discussed the elections in the Times asserts that in the rural districts the heavy imperial vote is due quite as much to ignorance as to preference for the Empire. The peasant calls the Government ticket "le bon bulletin," meaning thereby not that he likes it, but that it is the one which is sure to keep him out of trouble and difficulty ; and he is so convinced that if he does not take back to the ballot-box the very same ticket sent him by the Mayor he will be committing an offence, that his wife often takes it back for him in the absence of her husband. " The French peasant does not even dare not to vote." Yet in spite of this, hatred to the Government has produced a vote of internecine war against it of not much less than half the total number of votes, four votes being given for hostile candidates to every five for the Government.

" W. R. G." points out with his usual ability in the Pall Mall that the Orleanists have not only been crushed, but that they richly deserved it,—by their thoroughly selfish foreign policy, their grudge against Italy and Germany, and their narrow home policy. His letter is good, but a curiously remarkable illustration of an old proverb which we may paraphrase as "Set an Orleanist to catch an Orleanist.' " " W. R. G.," it is true, has never been jealous of the growth of France and Germany, but his jealousy of America and his earnest desire to see America divided, is the precise English equivalent of the French Orleanism ; while his bitter opposition to the working-class on social questions, and his enthusiastic opposition to a Liberal Irish policy on all questions, present the precise analogue of M. Thiers' sharply defined errors and neatly expressed fallacies on the domestic policy of France.

Another crisis has occurred in Italy, which amply justifies our statement a fortnight ago that " the remodelled Italian Ministry is a flimsy piece of patchwork." Count Cambray Digny's financial scheme has been met with an adverse vote by three out of four bureaux in the House. The reason is said to be Count Cambray Digny's final proposal to confide the collection of the revenue to the Banca Nazionale, while a great many members very naturally wish not to give any one bank the monopoly in a work so likely to give rise to jobbing, and accordingly have insisted that the Banca di Napoli should collect the revenue in Southern Italy. Count 'Cambray Digny, however, is supposed to have succumbed to the great influence exercised by the Banos Nazionale in Northern Italy ; at all events, he resisted the division of the duty between the two banks, and hence bis defeat. Signor Ferraris, the only member of the Pernwnente party who joined the new Government, is also said to be the nominee of the Banat Nazionale, and to have intrigued against one of his own colleagues, Signor Minghetti, who has been defeated on his reelection at Bologna,—and, as it is said, defeated under instructions from Ferraris. Hence the break-down seems to be the expression of well-justified Italian disgust at an intrigue and a job. But it shows how sad a piece of botchery the late reconstruction was. The adhesion of Signor Ferraris has weakened the ministry ; and Minghetti is not popular enough to get his re-election.

Mr. Motley has arrived, has been well received at Liverpool, and has answered the deputations which waited on him with the usual formal addresses with dignity and courtesy, but without effusion. The Atlantic Cable has already reported that Mr. Motley's tone has given satisfaction in America, where the irritation against England seems to be rapidly disappearing with the disappearance of its chief cause, Mr. Reverdy Johnson. It is pretty clear, however, that the very emphatic Dash expressions of opinion with regard to Mr. Sumner's demands have aided this

change of mind. The Americans were beginning to be subject the delusion that whatever they asked for they would get, an that frame of mind in us they not only despise, but dislike. The have felt far more goodwill, no less than far moss respect, for us, since they saw that we could "put our foot down," as Abraham Lincoln said, pretty vigorously on the subjea.

There is a story current in New York, on as bad authority as it is possible to have, that of the New York Herald, that Mr. Sumner, having called the other day on the President at Washington, and having been told by the usher that he would have to wait a quarter of an hour before he could see General Grant, replied that he would not wait a quarter of an hour for the Emperor Napoleon, Queen Victoria, or any one else, and went away in a huff, speaking of the White House as nothing but a military camp. The story seems to us very improbable. Reasonable Americans have a real honour for the duties of a laborious and responsible office, and thus far, in spite of his irrationality towards England, we are not indisposed to believe Mr. Sumner a reasonable American. But both this story and a telegram of yesterday stating a report that the President had expressed disapprobation of the principles of Mr. Sumner's speech, seem to point to a clear divergence of policy between the republican leader in the Senate and the Administration.

We have spoken elsewhere of Lord Lothian's strong and striking letter against the rejection of the Irish Bill by the Peers. Lord Lothian is a Liberal-Conservative laid aside by illness from political life, but still young,— he is not yet forty,—and one for whom his friends once anticipated a brilliant career. He says boldly that whether he had approved the Suspensory Bill of last year or not,—of course, he did not,—be should have voted against it, thinking it almost a breach of the Constitution to prolong the career of a condemned Parliament in order to carry out a revolution ;—that whether he had thought the final bill right or wrong, —again,of course he really thinks it wrong,—he should have voted for it as the deliberate resolve of the nation, which no inferior power is either able to resist or justified in resisting. If delay were likely to elicit that the nation had changed its mind, Lord Lothian would vote for delay ; but he is candid enough to admit that of this there is no sign, and he deprecates earnestly giving any warrant for the cry "Justice to Ireland! accorded by the people of England, but denied by the House of Lords."

The House of Lords debated Lord Russell's Life Peerages' Bill, without, as it seems to us, any adequate conception of the real exigencies of the House of Peers, on Thursday night. Lord Cairns made a very poor speech against the necessity for any real modification of the House of Peers, assenting to the 28 Life Peers only on condition that not more than two should be appointed in any year. Two and a half Commoners a year, he said, are on an average added to the House of Peers by the ordinary process, and two more Life Peerages would be quite enough of fresh infusion. He saw no danger in the preponderance of landed and hereditary interest& Lord Carnarvon, who made a very able speech, said very justly, that what the House of Lords wants is more knowledge, more command of varied information, and new departments of thought,—which he termed more censorial (2 critical) power,—what we have called elsewhere more intellectual flexibility and impartiality. He pointed out that the history of the Upper House showed how, in old times, when the clergy was the only learned body, the House was full of ecclesiastical peers; and he inferred that some new arrangements for securing the intellectual superiority of the Upper House were needful,—both for the sake of a good mutual understanding between the two Houses, and in order to supplement the probable deficiencies of the Commons in this respect.

Lord Penzance (Sir J. Wilde) made his first speech in the Lords on this .debate, and a very striking speech it was, completely penetrated by the conception that there must be more assimilation between the two Houses if the Peers are to continue a great element in the State. He admitted indeed that the body of the House must continue to represent realized property, but it was far more important that it should likewise henceforth represent " the active intelligence of the country." "It would be a positive advantage that no one should be able to point to a decision of this House and say,—That is a decision of the landowners." Both Lord Penzance and Lord Carnarvon protested strongly against the idea of making the Life Peerage plan subserve merely " party services," as they are called. Finally, the Bill passed through Committee, Lord Russell's ultimate limit of 28

life peerages being retained, but the rate of creation being limited to two a year instead of four. This is an infinitesimal remedy for the rapidly growing divergence of political feeling and view on the part of the two Houses.

Mr. Roebuck is talked of for Marylebone, and last week received a deputation of Marylebone electors in order to explain to them his political views. Those views were peculiar. Mr. Roebuck declared himself to the deputation in principle a voluntaryist, but not the less bitter for that against the Irish Church Bill. His -answer to a question as to his views on that Bill was, that in his view " Mr. Gladstone's Bill was impolitic and dishonest." He was opposed to the Irish Church in the abstract, but he 4' could not but acknowledge that the Irish Church had done much good ;" and though he would not, " on the whole," bave established it, yet " being established, I was bound to acknowledge, as an Englishman, it had rendered much service to the State." Mr. Roebuck does not believe the Irish Church Bill to be a spoliation and robbery, for he thinks the property of the Irish Church is the property of the Irish people, 4‘ to do with it as they please,"—only they must not please to do with it as they are now doing. That the present Bill is " impolitic and dishonest every hour proves, and the future will show that I am right in denouncing a Minister who thus recklessly proposes so dangerous a measure." So says poor Mr. Roebuck,— :standing up for a Liberal creed so long as it bears Tory measures. He does not hope indeed to gather grapes of thorns or figs of thistles, but rather, when he gets hold of a thorn, he makes believe it is the rich produce of a vine, and as he munches his thistles, descants on the beauty of the fig-tree whence he gathered them.

The fresh news from New Zealand will not make Lord Granville feel better satisfied with his recent " strong " despatch. The .superintendent of Wellington, Dr. Featherstone, has been delivering himself of his views in the provincial assembly at Wellington, and advocating,—as usual,—abject reliance on the Imperial Government for the reduction of the Maori rebellion. Dr. Feather.stone,—who has, we fear, a fair chance of being carried into power when the General Assembly meets,—insists with the utmost pertinstoity that if the Northern island is to be saved " from almost utter destruction," "there must be an almost entire reversal of past policy, and an immediate application for Imperial troops on the terms offered by the Imperial authorities." If Dr. Featherstone should come into power on that programme, he will have to carry through a remarkable and, but for its certainly melancholy results, somewhat entertaining correspondence with Lord Granville. But the worst feature of the case is, that not only does Dr. Featherstone say this, but that, if the Times' correspondent may be trusted, the most cordial approbation of his view was telegraphed from all parts of the colony to Wellington. That, we confess, reveals to us a complication more hopeless than any we had yet conceived. Here is a Colonial Minister at one side of the world sending out " strong " despatches, of which the general drift is that New Zealand has no conceivable claim either to a soldier or a penny of subvention,— while the only remaining regiment, the 18th, has, as it is known, been peremptorily recalled,—and here is the political hero of the Opposition in New Zealand recommending a total reversal of policy in the direction of complete dependence on the mother country,—a policy which seems likely to result, like all attempts to depend upon a vacuum, in a shock and a fracture. With authorities diametrically at variance in more senses than one,— not only at variance, that is, but separated by the whole diameter of the earth, and so taking four months to find out how much they are at variance,—Dr. Featherstone's policy of dependence is not a promising one. But the policy of moderate help ought never to have been abandoned by us.

Mr. Lowe seems to us to maintain that though he gets, by his Budget arrangements, an extra quarter's income-tax, &c., within the year, the taxpayer does not lose it. This is a difficult idea. In a letter to Wednesday's Times, he argues, " The proper way to look at the case, is to leave out of the question the payment in April, 1869, which is for a past year, and must be made under either system, the old or the new, and compare them from that date. Suppose a man has £20 income-tax to pay. On the old system he will pay £10 in October, 1869 ; £5 in January, 1870 ; £5 in April, 1870,—total, £20. On the new, he will pay £20 in January, 1870. Compare the two. By the new plan he gains the use of £10 from October to January, and loses the use of £5 from January to April ; and so he gains the use of or interest on £5,—that is, one quarter's income-tax for three months." That is quite true, of course ; but Mr. Lowe gets £5 more this year, namely, £25 iu the year (including the April back payment), instead of £20, and will yet have his £20 next year too. No juggling can prove that a man who pays £25 in one year, or £45 in two, instead of £20 and £40 respectively, does not lose £5 by it in the end. Mr. Lowe gets the advantage of an earlier revenue, or be would not have made the change ; and an earlier revenue, is, for all mortal beings, unless they die before January next, a larger contribution. Mr. Lowe does not surely mean to deny that if the Treasury gets more, mortals pay more ?

Professor Owen is so good as to inform to that " myonicity means the characteristic or peculiar vital property of the muscular tissue, a paraphrase sometimes shortened into muscular energy or force. Desirous not to use two or more words where one would suffice, Professor Owen was guided by the analogy of electricity in the construction of the term in question from the root izi,"c. So, likewise, with nettricity,' or ' nervous force,' from the root wEi; pow. (Anatomy of Vertebrates — passim)." And Professor Owen is so kind as to add that " he has the more pleasure in supplying this information, as an admission of lack of knowledge on any point by an able editor is as rare as it is laudable." If professions of ignorance are laudable, we at least must gain a good deal of praise every week which is very easily earned. And we shall, we hope, earn one more such mead of praise when we confess our inability to see that tnyonicity ' is formed in the same way from /.44 in which neuricity ' is formed from v6pov, and electricity from ;;?..fxrpov. Indeed, wo have a confession of a yet deeper and we hope even more laudable ignorance still to make—our ignorance, namely why Professor Owen should have been " desirous not to use two or more words where one would suffice." If one word suffices to conceal the meaning from common people, including editors, able or unable, and two or more suffice to explain it, would not the true economy of expression favour the use of the latter ?

There has been a serious riot at Mold, in Flintahire. Eight colliers had been summarily convicted of assaulting the manager of the Leeswood colliery, Mr. John Young, and two were committed to prison for a month, and on their removal a rescue was attempted by the other colliers, though they were guarded both by a body of the constabulary and a small force of soldiers,—a company of the 4th, King's Own. The mob assembled in thousands, and attempted the rescue. The telegraph office, whore the soldiers took refuge, was destroyed, and all the windows of the train by which the men were taken were broken. The Riot Act was read, and the soldiers, after firing blank cartridge at first, at length fired in earnest, and one man was killed on the spot, and another, and a woman accidentally near the spot, were mortally wounded, and died subsequently. Another woman, who was going in search of her husband, is said to be in a hopeless condition. However, the casualties were not all on one side. Captain Blake, commanding the company of soldiers, was seriously injured by the paving-stones thrown (some of them 31b. or 41b. in weight); one soldier is likely to die, and twelve policemen were hurt. It is disputed in some quarters whether the Riot Act was read or not before the first firing, but the opinion as to the great forbearance of the soldiers, when violently attacked seems to be confirmed on all sides.

Mr. Gladstone announced yesterday week that the Ministry are not only not opposed to the National system of education in Ireland, but favourable to it. If the Roman Catholic clergy were waiting to revive the Education system " in grim repose,"— as Mr. Disraeli asserts,—this announcement of the Prime Minister's must have been a shock to that grim repose. But we have not as yet heard any murmuring.

If the Suez Canal should really succeed at last, there will ho a disagreeable question as to its neutrality to be discussed among the European powers, which a rumour from Vienna asserts to be already brought up by England. The Viceroy of Egypt, it is said, has asked the European Powers to guarantee the neutrality of the Canal, and to this Austria, Prussia, and England have assented,— England prompting the suggestion,—but France objecting. This is, of course, all rumour. But if the Suez Canal does not put an end to the question of its neutrality by comfortably silting up almost as soon as it is opened, a very unpleasant controversy of some sort will doubtless have to be got through about it.