NEWS OF THE WEEK.
THE House rose in anger yesterday week for its Whitsun holiday, and it reassembled in anger on Thursday night after its Whit- sun holiday. Lord Elcho, in one of his most conceited and silly speeches, was the irritant element in the first case ; Mr. Disraeli's affectation to disbelieve iu the authenticity of that letter of Mr. Gladstone's which was used in the East Worcestershire election, and assertion that it was an election hoax or squib, " a gross cari- cature of the right honourable gentleman's least happy style," opened the ball in the latter instance. The House can scarcely meet at all now without a sort of Donnybrook of debate. Lord Elcho last week attacked the Liberals for wishing to press on the dissolution which he himself, he said, did not wish for,—and no wonder,—while he did wish, and thought it of great importance, that his holiday should be undisturbed by an election canvass. We would respectfully suggest to Lord Elcho that even in case of the earliest possible dissolution, his own private interest in this matter might be happily combined with the still more weighty interest of the public, if he would only take his holiday as usual,— and prolong it indefinitely. After Lord Eleho there was the usual troubling of the waters,—not, however, of the angelic or healing kind, — and Mr. Gladstone concluded the debate by pressing very earnestly on the Ministry the constitutional necessity of getting rid of a Parliament which they professed to believe a false representation of the mind of the people, and intimating that if after Whitsuntide they could not declare their policy on the subject, independent members would probably be compelled to elicit the opinion of the House.
