NEWS OF THE WEEK.

Tux question- of India and her legislation has become entirely merged in the question of Ministers and their official proceedings. Last week we had copies of the extraordinary letter of censure which Lord Ellenborough had sent out to the Governor-General of India, with an incomplete version of the proclamation on which the censure was founded. This week we have the omitted paragraphs in the proclamation, and we have the letter of explanatory instructions issued by Lord Canning as the com- plement of the public instrument. No sooner were these in- structions seen, than the real character of Lord Canning's act was better understood, and the conduct of the Government stood out in its full absurdity. With regard to the Proclamation itself and its fundamental doctrine—the appropriation of the land of Oude to the Sovereign of England—there is of course full room for discussion, and the balance of public opinion appears to be against the Governor-General. It was an unhappy course to raise that question of property at this particular juncture, es- pecially when we take it in connexion with Lord Canning's many, vacillations in Oude. But the explanatory instructions 'do impart a very different character to the paper as the warrant for administrative action. The Proclamation confers a maximum of power on the Commander-in-chief and on the local British Governor, while the instructions modify the application of that power in an important degree. With the exception of murderers in cold blood, even obstinate rebels are to be free from prison or transportation—are to go under arrest at large, and their cases are to be treated individually ; a second class of rebels, less ardent, are to return to their homes under guarantees for good behaviour ; and a third class, although in rebellion to the last, if they can prove their returning loyalty, are to be re- admitted to all their rights, and even employed to organize a system of police, being in fact restored to the duties as well as rights of their feudal tenure. The instructions are careful to point out the necessity of the most painstaking and the most thoroughgoing discrimination, extended even to every individual case ; so that, on the whole, there is mach to qualify the rigor- ous severity of the confiscation. It is evident, however, that in- stead of waiting for explanation, feeling both as a party man and as an ambitious Indian dictator, Lord Ellenborough snatched at an opportunity to crush Lord Canning with unqualified and unmitigated censure. His colleagues appeared by his side in that wild course.

This conduct of the Ministers opened an opportunity for the Opposition, and on Monday announcements of resolutions cen- suring the Government were made in both Houses. It is indeed whispered that the persons who made these announcements were not those who had originally expressed the intention. A noble- man more independent of the late Government has been desig- nated as having intended to move in the Upper House, and in the Lower House a still more distinguished man is understood to have thought of dealing the blow with his own hand. Mr. Card- well was perhaps thought to be more " independent " ; and Lord Shaft sbnry looks so, though he has usurped the occasion. [WITH SPECIAL SUPPLEMENT.]

At all events the time appeared arrived for the Opposition to take its threatened step and to turn out the Government.

On the second night of the week, however, Lord Ellenborough took a decided course to obviate this danger for his colleagues, and to expiate his political fault by self-sacrifice. With an elo- quence rising to the occasion he declared that the letter of cen- sure was his own measure, the transmission his own, the publi- cation his own ; and he had taken his own step also in tendering his resignation to the Queen, who had accepted it. Lord Derby listened to this act of self-sacrifice with " the deepest pain," but he accepted it, and even hinted that he disapproved of " the hasty promulgation" of. Lord Ellenborough's letter. This sound- ed strange ; for Mr. Bernie had produced it in the Commons, after twenty-four hours' notice, on the simple request for it ; copies had been intrusted to a Peer and a Member of Parliament not in the Government ; and it came out that Lord Ellen- borough's colleagues had actually sat in conclave upon the por- tions which ought to be admitted in the published version. Be- sides these same colleagues, by their avowals, stand responsible for sharing in the substance of the letter. Perhaps the historian, freely exercising the right of conjecture, could reconcile these several statements, if he surmised, that although, as Lord Ellen- borough said, his colleagues shared in his " views," they left him to write his letter without reading it, and published it in a hurry, without much thought ; he really being left to manage the whole affair by himself.

But is the Ministry saved ? The Opposition thinks not. If Ministers did leave the affair to Lord Ellenborough, whose chd- ratter they perfectly understood, so much the worse for them. They are in spirit as well as technically thoroughly responsible for his act. Friday ;light therefore arrives ; Ministers are awaiting the debate which is to determine their official existence, our postscript will tell the result, and may perhaps throw some light on those rumours of " resignation," or " dissolution," which have been current throughout the week. But will the . more in- dependent members of the Liberal party make up their minds to _restore to office the government ejected with grave censure in February ? We can scarcely believe that such will be the case, or that if it happens the country and themselves will be satisfied with the result.

The Oaths Bill has also brought parties and both Houses of Parliament into a curious complication. Lord John Russell be- gan the action by moving the House of Commons to disagree with that amendment of the Lords which had struck out the clause permitting Jews to omit the words " on the true faith of a Christian," and Lord John was supported by a great majority. Lord John then procured the appointment of a Select Committee to draw up " reasons " for rejecting the amendment ; and very good reasons the Committee has turned out. Mean- while, Sir Richard Bethel promised to suggest a course which should be at once constitutional and sparing of collision with the Upper House ; all calculations of the kind, however, proceeding upon the assumption that the Peers " must "give way if they are pressed. Mr. Thomas Duncombe has succeeded in rendering the whole contest almost too absurd for the practical affairs of life. On his motion, after some debate accompanied by con- siderable admissions on the part of the Solicitor-General, the House added Baron Lionel de Rothschild to the Select Com- mittee ; so that the Member for London City wilt act as a Mem- ber of Parliament, and will serve on a Select Committee ; and his position will go far to prove that the House of Lords can restrain him from nothing but the act of voting. This position of the affair, we believe, has already had a considerable moral effect in the House of Lords. And it is understood that already Sir Richard Bethel, or the cause, has gained important adherents in that House.

Several questions, minor in grade, but of no small importance, have been discussed, and only discussed. Mr. Ayrton has moved the second reading of his Metropolitan Poor-rate Bill simply to withdraw it under circumstances which stamp a 'censure upon himself. The grievance is flagrant. Many of the inetroplitan

parishes are constantly rem' ing the accumulated flow of pauper- ism from other parishes, while the rate-paying class in them overladen parishes is continuality diminishisig, until at last the rating in some of the parishes makes tremendous inroads upon the rental. A measure for equalizing the burden is most deter- able ; but Mr. Ayrton's bill would have taken the authority from the parochial representatives, and reposed it in an irresponsibite centralized body, giving new power to " boards of justices." Of course this could not pass. At the end of the debate, he con- fessed he could not divide against the argument that local funds should be subject to local supervision ; a confession made after he had, in turgid and threatening tones thrown upon the President of the Poor law Board the responsibility of rejecting the mea- sure ! Really gentlemen who abuse the Legislature's time in this manner, should be subjected to some sort of restraint. Cannot the House appoint some official to take care of Members who cannot take care of themselves : a functionary to act as curator prodigi for gentlemen of Mr. Ayrton's stamp ?

Mr. Mackinnon's Bill to settle differences between masters and workmen—an object as laudable as settling family differences— has been on the paper, debated, and withdrawn.

Lord Robert Cecil drew attention to the abuses of private legislation and select committees thereon in the Commons, adopt- ing the suggestion that a permanent paid commission should perform the duties now left to select committees, and revise local or private bills before their introduction into the House in order to see that they complied with the legal requirements. But, again, after a discussion, Lord Robert withdrew his motion. He had no Bill ; he avowed that he had no plan ; it was nothing more than a " ventilating " of the subject.

Lord Ebrington's resolutions recommending further improve- ment of barracks were scarcely so resnitless, although any practical consequences still await the pleasure of the eminent individuals that have that subject in hand. This habit of bringing forward subjects only to " debate," in which many Members indulge, when they have no substantive proposition of their own, is a burlesque on " discussion," and is in fact a rob- bery of the time of the House ; which, if it were properly em- ployed, would be jealously preserved for measures of a strictly practical kind. In the present state of parties, however, this elass of Members who ventilate subjects may plead a peculiar excuse. The whole energies of the Legislature are evaporating in " Resolutions."

Mr. Headlam's Bill for extending limited liability to joint- stock banking companies, makes way by the force of rather a re- markable argument. Many opponents of limited liability posi- tively support the Bill, because, if the principle be admitted for one kind of company they do not see why it should be refused to another ; and the measure is only permissive, authorizing the companies to establish themselves and obtain custom if they can on the avowed principle of limited liability. Many joint-stock companies have already shown that the present law in practice, sometimes secures unlimited unliability, as in the case of the Western Bank of Scotland ; in whose behalf Sir Archibald Ali- son has discovered a novel plea—a treasure-trove which has been found too late for the Royal British Bank : it is, that the ma- nagers of the bank relied upon the promises of the free-traders, in Parliament, public meeting, and paper, that there should be unlimited prosperity for the commerce of the country. That promise has been broken, and it is against the free-traders that the Maconoehie-Welwoolls should turn their indignation, says Historian Alison ! It is indeed, in writing and in debate upon this subject, very difficult "to draw the line" between the li- mited and the unlimited. What a pity some ancient Greek philosopher cannot be returned to the House of Commons, to assist honourable Members by constructing a metaphysical " standing order " for the purpose !

The reception given to Mr. Layard by a public meeting in St. James's Hall, eager to hear the oral report of his experiences in India, attests the public anxiety to obtain direct information. It is not to be expected that a gentleman touring it rapidly over the surface of a vast empire, endeavouring to piece out positive in- formation by drawing forth the Natives in gossip, could add substantially to what we already knew, or penetrate very deeply to the causes of things. Hence we find Mr. Layard reopening the Dalhousie policy without carrying us any further than we were before ; describing the misery inflicted by war, without supplying any strong argument to prove that we could have kept the peace ; contending that the mutiny was not a merely mili- tary revolt but a national outbreak against the sense of wrong- ous treatment. No man can claim to have a complete knowledge of any foreign subject simply on the ground that he has " been there " ; but no doubt ideas with which we are already familiar were rendered more vivid to many who attended the meeting, not excluding the honourable gentlemen who figured on the plat- form ; and Mr. Layard's graphic descriptions of misgovernment in India will tell on the debates for even more than their logical TAM. 4n the whole Mr. Layard's clememakaiion is not unlike OA/ midi* jest of the /ample brick cacritil *bout to show what the tame was like.

The Continental intelligence of the week is little more than the same commodity which Mr. Layard has imported from India —gossip, yet it is not uninteresting. A vote more or less in the pageant representation of the French people does not seem a very weighty affair ; yet the loss of another election in Paris is an- other sign that the hold of Louis Napoleon upon the empire is not absolute, was perhaps even another letter added to the hand- writing on the wall.

It is evident, however, that he is extending his influence abroad by a very familiar process, that of unsettlement combined with the offer of protection. The Moniteur semi-officially ex- plains certain agitations in Montenegro by informing us that the Emperor is extending his aegis over Prince Danilo as against the encroachments of his suzerain, the Sultan ; for Montenegro, in the Parisian view, is an independent state. What does this mean ? Is France reversing on the Adriatic shore the policy which she has professed to adopt from England on the Danube ?

The sudden dismissal of the Spanish Ministry, too, is ascribed to some unintelligible scheme for promoting certain railway and royal interests ; which distinguished residents in Paris, and dis- tinguished Paris financiers, could probably explain. The Credit Mobilier this year has returned no dividend : has it decreed "dividends est Hispania" ?

While the equivocal proceedings of our Government are occa- sioning much questioning and explanatory debate in the Sar- dinian Chambers, the Austrian Archduke, Governor of the Lom- bardo-Venetian kingdom, has gone to Vienna, it is said, to pro- cure larger powers for his peculiar projects of compulsory " con- ciliation."

These disturbing influences in our own Continent are so near that they deafen us to reports from the distant West, whence they are shouting the indignant rumour that Great Britain " intends to fortify Ruatan." Credat Cass-ius !