NEWS OF THE WEEK.
BOTH Houses of Parliament have adjourned for a fortnight's holy- days, after two more sittings, employed in disposing of-a few odds BOTH Houses of Parliament have adjourned for a fortnight's holy- days, after two more sittings, employed in disposing of-a few odds and ends : in the House of Commons, more of the Poor-law, Mr. LABOUCHERE'S Colonial duties resolutions, a modest little motion by Mr. EWART which furnished some talk about a State Minister of Education ; and in the House of Lords, an Opposition motion -upon Irish juries.
As they have gone to play, the natural inquiry is, what work 'have they done ? The "Upper" House have done great things— they have set Lord CARDIGAN at ease from all the annoyance to
which certain people with a prurient sense of justice would have subjected him, if it were only for appearance's sake; and they have spent several days in teasing the Irish Poor-law Commissioners and their clerks about a blundering letter.
The House of Commons have been still more industrious and judicious. They have made a ring for Lord STANLE.Y and Lord Moa- psra to fight in, with two Irish Registration Bills; and they have helped the two combatants so to economize their forces that the game is not up : the fight stands over till after Easter, when the sport will be renewed, to the infinite amusement of the by- standers, and the vast credit of both champions each with his own party. Last Easter, STANLEY had the best of the battle ; this year, his antagonist has learned a new trick, and STANLEY is losing. But who shall say that the contest will not serve another Easter yet ? The next imposing subject for the wisdom of the People's House to exercise itself upon has been the Poor-law Continuation Bill. Here has been some real deliberation : the new Poor-law is the crack piece of workmanship of the Whig statesmen, and their seal is piqued to make it answer, in spite of the obstinate re- sistance, fair or unfair, which it has encountered. Nor was it all holy day-work : the honest rancour or the artifice of the Anti- Poor-law agitators has spurred them on to use every effort and every stratagem to defeat the promoters of the law ; and among their resources has been a wholesale and reckless imputa- tion of motives and designs. It is not pleasant to be charged, how- ever gratuitously, with deliberate intentions to starve the industrious poor, to ruin hard-working labourers by reducing their wages, and to keep down a redundant population by poisoning helpless pau- pers with bad food. Such, however, have been among the heavy charges brought against the supporters of the Poor-law : and they have been manfully met. There are probably several con- siderations to sustain the courage of Ministers in the struggle : first, of course, there is the zeal for their favourite piece of legisla- tion ; then Sir ROBERT PEEL was not against them ; next, the work, disagreeable as it might be, filled up the nights of the session as effectually as the -great Privilege question of last year, and thrust out other work which it might have been far more troublesome and hazardous to get through. The class of agitators who were called into activity make a great show and pother, but do not appeal to any very influential section of the community : they are worth defeating for the credit of the thing, without being worth much fear. Thus Ministers have g6t over the first half of the session, with not the less eclat for a few majorities over the partisans of the pauper.
And that is all. Year after year, the materials which the deeds of the MELBOURNE Ministry have furnished for an account of work done in Parliament before Easter, have dwindled down, until now they amount to nothing. The battery which was to " bombard the House of Lords with good measures " is silenced : the House of Lords have enjoyed uninterrupted peace. There are possibly still some who will be disappointed at the blank account presented at Easter. We must confess to disappointment in former years with less apparent cause—when there was some show of the " bombardment," some list of measures to be kicked out : but that time is long past. It was indeed romantically imagined that the Whiga had introduced a new order of things ; and disappointment was natural when the new order was found to be so very like the old order for all practical purposes. Now it is known that the old and the new order are all but the same, and so disappointment is a thing gone by. If, too, there is no political regeneration for the country, no doubt there is much improvement going on ; not blazoned in Parliament, we admit, but silently working never- theless. The world advances, although Whig statesmen do little to help it forward. And there are signs of it even in Parliament. The approximation of parties, which has made certain manceuverers hope for a coalition, if it proves the backsliding of the Whigs, proves also that the Tories are not where they were ; that Tory ism is no longer the thing of power and credit that it once was. The Toryism of '30 is out of date in '41— shelved by its own friends, and openly put aside. That is an ad- vance. Then, the first half of the session has presented the un- foreseen exhibition of Sir ROBERT PEEL as an agitator in the House of Commons for popular education : education is no longer a tabooed, scarcely even a disputed subject, except as to mean: the acutest and ablest of the great anti-education party finds it proper and expedient to identify himself with the new demand for popular instruction. That indicates a very surprising advance. Again, a vigorous exposition of our restrictive commercial system, in the Report of the Import-duties Committee, has made a fer- ment in the country, and a murmur is heard on all sides, Tory as well as Liberal, which promises to grow to a loud and imperative call for free trade. The new movement may be strong enough to bear down opposition and bring triumph to its supporters: it is expedient to forestall a little timeserving now and then, and so the hangers-on of Ministers already bespeak credit for extraordinary intentions on the part of Government. Free trade, then, is not among the forbidden things. but almost in good report enough to be introduced at Court. Truly the world gets on.
