POSTSCRIPT. SATURDAY.
The business tranqoated in the House of Commons last night was of a very multifarious kind.
Introducing the Navigation-laws Amendment Bill, Mr. LABOUCIIERE stated that, for the convenience of Mr. Harries, the second reading would not be taken before the 5th of March.
Sir Join/ Warsu raised a conversation (which had no specific result) by complaining of the " count-out " on Thursday; an unusual step at the time of private business. The SPEAKER agreed that it was so.
On the motion for affirming the report on Supply, Mr. HUME called for a statement of Ways and Means before voting away the public money- s 'There had been laid on the table that day Estimates for the expenses of the Army and Navy to the amount of between 14,000,0001. and 15,000,0001.; and he had asked whether the Government were prepared, before calling on the House to vote any estimates, to submit a statement of what was called the budget, by which the House might be informed of the aggregate amount of the expenses of the Govern- ment for the year, and of the means by which those expenses were to be defrayed. Sir CHARLES WOOD said, the usual course was to vote the Estimates, and then to make the financial statement; and that was the course which it was the intention of the Government to adopt in the present session. Mr. DISRAELI argued, that the official discovery and confession of lax manage- ment in the Admiralty sufficed to show that " the usual course " ought no longer to influence the House on these subjects; and Mr. BENJAMIN SMITH observed that last year the financial statement was made before the Supplies were voted.. Lord Joan RUSSELL stuck to Sir Charles Wood's position; but said the financial statement would be made before the motion to renew the Income-tax, on the 5th April.
On the report of the Habeas Corpus Suspension Bill, Mr. JOHN O'CON- NELL attempted to renew his provision to protect the right of petitioning. Opposed by Sir GEORGE GREY, unsupported by Mr. FEARGUS O'CONNOR or Mr. ANSTEY, the amendment was negatived, by 94 to 12.
When the report of the Committee on Irish Distress was brought up, Mr. POULETT SCROPE moved, as an addition to the resolution for granting 50,0001., a provision that the money be advanced as a loan, and repayment secured by a lien on the lands liable to the uncollected rates, with power of sale; and also that it be expended in reproductive employment. This motion was followed by a renewal of the discussion on the subject not greatly differing from those which bad preceded it: the amendment, indeed, was not so much discussed as the grant itself; which was demanded by the same class of speakers as before, repudiated by some Irish Members or gen- tlemen interested in Ireland on the same grounds of its mischievous opera- tion, supported by Ministers with the briefest reindication of the grounds on which they stand, and assented to by several who intended to vote with Ministers merely as a measure " the last of the series."
The most notable incident was an excellent speech by Mr. NAPIER; striking for its moderate tone, its direct language, its grasp of the subject, its breadth of view, and strictly practical drift. He counselled the Irish Members to leave off scolding the English Members—who manifestly wished to do Ireland justice—and to instruct them. He described the Legislature as now paying the penalty for so long neglecting the social remedies which are dictated by the social maladies of Ireland. Diverted to party conflicts, the Legislature has not planned its measures according to the actual state of the country: a bill to facilitate the sale of encum- bered estates was passed last year, but not a single estate has been sold under that law. The fact that property yielding a rental of more than 1,000,0001. is in Chancery, locked up from the slightest chance of im- provement, was overlooked. In 1838, when the Irish Poor-law passed, Lord Lansdowne declared it to be a solemn pledge of Government by every means in its power to encourage the employment of the labouring poor of Ireland: the pledge has been neglected, and Ireland is visited by famine— He had found, that in the very session in which the Poor-law of Elizabeth was passed, Parliament had passed an act for reclaiming thousands of acres in different counties in England; and Lord Bacon said—" There never was the like quantity of waste and unprofitable ground reclaimed and improved. There was never the like husbanding of all sorts of grounds, by fencing, manuring, and all kinds of good husbandry. The commodities and ease of rivers, cut by hand and brought into a new channel, of piers that have been built, of waters that have been forced from the ground, were never so many." It was upon these undertakings that the able-bodied poor who were to be provided with work under the 43d of Elizabeth were employed.
This speech was followed up, at a later stage, by Mr. DISRAELI; who in- sisted, again and again, on the " comprehensive measures." The grant of 50,0001. was a delusion palmed upon the House—nearly 600,0001. would be wanted by the twenty-one suffering unions. The Premier called it" an extraordinary measure": it is an ordinary measure—a vulgar measure; a low, mean expedient of a Government unable to cope with the difficulties it has to encounter. The Premier said, we resort to extraordinary measures when our houses are on fire: no, we don't; we send for the parish-engine; but 'when his house is on fire, it seems, he proposes a Committee of inquiry ! Mr. Disraeli objected to the grant, because it went to relieve Ministers from the responsibility which devolved upon them, of bringing forward "comprehensive measures." We want, not an exceptional policy, but a policy to improve the opportunity for reconstructing society in Ireland on a broad and permanent basis.
Towards the close of the night, there were several divisions: the ad- journment,, moved by Sir HENRY BARRON, was negatived by 154 to 7; an amendment by Lord DUDLEY STUART, making the grant a loan repayable by a anion-rate, was 'negatived by 157 to 9; the motion to adopt the re- port was carried by 128 to 39.
The House of Lords barely met to adjourn.
The following are the most interesting notices in the Order-book of the Commons.
Monday, Feb. 19. Lord John Russell—Committee of the whole House on Oaths to be taken by Members of the two Houses of Parliament. Thursday, Fab. 22. Mr. Stuart Wortley—Bill to amend and alter the Act 5 and 6 Will. IV., c. 54, so fir as relates to marriage within certain degrees of FrsutL, Feb. 23. Mr. Ward—Navy Estimates. (In Committee of Supply.) y, Feb. 27. Sir William Molesworth—Motion on the financial embar- rassments and disturbances, and the conduct of the Government, in Ceylon.
In the House of Lords, on Thursday next, the Bishop of Oxford will move for a Select Committee to consider the best means which Great Britain could adopt to secure the final extinction of the Slave-trade.
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