NEWS OF THE WEEK.
• TEE Peers have signalized the last week of the session by an act which none but a faction utterly despurate, reckless of consequences , and bereft of reason, would have committed. The leaders of the Majority assembled on Sunday at Apsley House, and determined , at all hazards to gratify their spleen by the rejection of the Irish 1 Tithe Bill. It is said that the Duke of WELLINGTON very reluc- tautly gave his sanction to this insane project of the party. His re- . luctance is to the credit of his sagacity; but his final surrender of , his opinion and his name to the Orange faction is a symptom of '. deplorable weakness. On Monday, Lord ELLENBOROUGH led the Opposition, and made the best of a bad cause in an ingenious speech. He blinked .: the real question, however, entirely; and assumed, in spite of facts, , that tithes could be collected, by a determined Government, from 1 the Irish peasantry. He found it much easier to charge the Ministry with vacillation and truckling to the agitators, than to prove that the bill he sought to throw out was not, under present circumstances, the best that could be offered to the Church. The Peers who followed on the same side adopted the same line of argu- ment. They contented themselves with reiterating the assertions, that the Church would be robbed by the bill ; that it was easy to find the Means of collecting the whole of the tithe, if the will ex- isted; and that Ministers had altered their measure to make court to Mr. O'CONNELL. - To all this it was reasonably replied, that as . regarded the Irish clergy, the question , was—fifteen shillings in : the pound on their debts, or no dividend at all ; that police and a had in vain endeavoured to collect the tithes; that in point of fact, the tithe-owners would get all that they could fairly , claim, deducting the cost of collection; that not a shilling more of i the public money would be lent to them ; that it was degrading and absurd to refuse a good measure because Mr. O'CONNELL had a hand in preparing it; and that so far from mortifying or wound- ing him, they were doing the Agitator exceedingly good service, by keeping all Ireland in a tlame on the subject of tithes. Had these arguments been ten times as strong as they are, and been enforced by the eloquence of angels, they would not have moved the Majority from the settled purpose of their souls. They had decreed to throw out the bill ; and accordingly the Ministers - Were outvoted, by 85 Peers Who attended the debate, with 104 proxies, to 51 with 71 Proxies—majority 67. The remaining business of the week is soon dismissed. The Lords' amendments in the Poor-Laws Bill were agreed to by the , Commons on Monday, with one exception. Their Lordships, very characteristically, expunged the clause which gave Dissenting ministers ,the,right to admission into workhouses for the purpose of adiniiiiiteiing ghostly comfort to Nonconforming paupers. But the House Of Commons insisted upon its reinsertion; and the Peers, under the dread of losing She bill, sulkily acquiesced. s. The Commons, on Wednesday, very properly rejected the County Coroners Bill, in consequence of the Peers refusing to enact that Coroners-, courts should be open to the public; and in revenge, their Lordships threw out the Justices of the Peace Bill, and some other good meast.res. . . . And this is the way the two Houses proceeded, 'snarling and .1 stlaiping at each other, till 'yesterday ; when, mUch to the satis- faction of all who take any interesCin flick proceedings, the King Prorogued them with the usual ceremony, in one of the most vapid g of Royal speeches. •
