NEWS OF THE WEEK.
INSTEAD of prolonging the session until the 15th instant, the day on which the Queen had first resolved to prorogue Parliament, her Majesty, considering the state of the grouse, and especially com- miserating her jaded Commons, has consented to lend her most gracious countenance to the ceremony at the earlier date ori- ginally named, and is to release the weary Lords and Gentlemen this day.
It has, of course, been a week of Royal Assents. The Oxford University Bill has at last attained its place in the list, among many others. The Lords removed every. of in order that the Public Charges Bill, after all its vicissitudes, might sweep up the avenue at the last. The Dudley-Stuart-Palmerston Russian Securities Bill has been amongst the beatified measures, but not without a new practical censure stamped upon its construction, even as amended by the Law-officers of the Crown : notwithstand- ing the many learned heads that have been, engaged in framing it, Lord Campbell showed that it would have been an inoperative superfluity if he had not added a provision rendering offences com- mitted abroad equally punishable with a similar kind committed in Middlesex. The Bribery Bill too, at least so much as remained of it, has arrived at completion, in spite of Lord Hotham's attempt to smother it by repeated motions of adjournment because the Lords had struck out the " travelling expenses" clause. A mea- sure more important than any of these in its bearing on the con- cerns of the community is the bill to improve the procedure at common law ; which has, however, been shorn of the clause dis- pensing with unanimity in juries. In the Commons some objec- tion was raised to se 'Jig the question of unanimity in the jury without further deliberation ; Ministers assented to the removal of the clause ; in both Houses it was understood that the subject should be taken up again separately ; and the Lord Chancellor sets it down " absolutely " for next session. In the last week of the session, the malcontent parties of both Houses have made demonstrations as if to prove that they are not yet ashamed. Lord Clanricarde has renewed his accusatory ques- tioning on the subject of the war against Russia and of our Aus- trian affiances • and has been effectually met by one of Lord Cla- rendon's straightforward and explicit replies, summing up the history of the last five months, and showing how we stand towards our enemy and our allies. In the Commons, Mr. Lucas has made the charges of forgery against Mr. Edmund O'Flaherty, formerly a Special Commissioner of Income-tax in Ireland, a peg for insinu- ating accusations against Ministers; and has thus shown that the Irish Members have not lost that appetite with which they began the session, for eating each other up in the presence of Parliament, or sacrificing their fellow-countrymen and colleagues to work some charm for the destruction of Government. Here also Mr. Glad- stone's simple explanation of the facts dismissed the charge, and left the accuser to explain how he could advance it unless he were guilty equally of misinformation and malignity. The last week of the session, however, has witnessed an import- ant innovation on the usage of Parliament.! The President of the Board of Control has made a statement on the subject of Indian finance ; which is not, of course, to be accounted a " budget " in the English sense of the word, since Parliament has not the detailed control over income and expenditure in India which it has in our own country. It is an account rendered by the responsible Minis- ter of the Crown as to what is going forward in an important pro- vince which the Crown holds for this country : and it is very cheering. While the revenue has recovered from a heavy deficiency, extending education, and, still more, extending public works, pro- mise an enlargement of Indian resources. And the attention thus drawn to the subject, coupled with the new powers given to the local authorities in India, is likely to secure a yet more rapid pro- gress from this point. On the whole, therefore, notwithstanding the
vicissitudes and disappointments of the session, Members may got; to their grouse with the comfortable conviction that the empire is not going to the dogs.
