NEWS OF THE WEEK.
THE concluding week of the extraordinary session has been marked by a great variety of business in Parliament. THE concluding week of the extraordinary session has been marked by a great variety of business in Parliament.
The Lords have had their say on the Irish District Coercion Bill. The Peers, Lord Stanley especially, criticized its weak points; and Lord Farnham produced a further budget of evidence against the priestly denunciators. But all this was without bin- derance to the rapid progress of the measure ; the noble Lords having an eye to its prompt application in Ireland, and to the near approach of their own holydays.
- The striking novelty of the week is Lord John Russell's motion -" on the removal of the civil and political disabilities affecting her Majesty's Jewish subjects." It is long since the British Com- mons discussed a subject in so purely argumentative a vein; the facts of the case not comic.. in issue. The " disability" in view is the form which excludes Jews, and more immediately one of the gentlemen lately elected by the City of London, from sitting in the House of Commons. The Jews are not numerous, nor are they a class of great political importance; the dis- cussion, therefore, turned entirely on the question of mo- ral right. It hinged mainly on two subsidiary questions,— Are Jews Englishmen or aliens ? could Parliament admit Jews without losing its character as a " Christian Le„ols- 'attire " The fundamental necessity of Parliament is, not that it should be called " Christian," but that it should, in its repre- sentative branch, represent the electors ; and it is for the electors to say who best represents them. Christian electors will usually prefer Christian representatives; so that any numerous invasion of Jewish Members is a dream. The nationality of English Jews is a disputed point : they have no country but England—they own no allegiance but to Queen Victoria; on the other hand, they have all along refused amalgamation by means of intermarriage— they are not of the English race or nation. But they are British subjects, and very loyal subjects ; and may safely be admitted to a fall share of representative government. They do elect Mem- bers of the House of Commons; they are prevented from sitting there on no question of race, but by the terms of an oath devised for a different purpose ; and their admission to Parliament com- pletes the round of religious freedom. Mr. Horsman has established a strong case for a revision of the Ecclesiastical Commission and its practice. The Commis- sioners seem chargeable either with the most singularly uniform maladroitness, or with glaring favouritism. When the Bishops' :revenues were under consideration with a view to rendering them less unequal, the Right Reverend Fathers made returns of their actual incomes and their incomes estimated for the future : it is remarkable that the estimates of future income were uniformly -too low,—an error which had the effect of mitigating the pressure of diminution on the episcopal revenues. The practice of the Commissioners further mitigates the pressure on the Bishops : .where the Commissioners have to exact payments from the rich sees, they exact too little ; where they have to pay, they pay too much : and in the mean time the working clergy are starved. Ministers " cordially" admitted the expediency of revising the practice of the Commission; but Sir George Grey tried to show that Mr. Horsman had made some mistakes—that the fault lay not with the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, but with the law re- gulating the Commission ; and therefore he resisted the motion of implied censure. An unsatisfactory disposal of the question even as a temporary makeshift : it is not becoming in a Minis- try to put off movements of which the substantial merit and necessity are admitted, by resistance on technical points.
[LATEST EDITION.] The progress of the Railways Bill has enabled Mr. Stafford to bring the condition of the discharged railway labourers under
notice, though without any direct result. Our anticipation of trouble from that robust and ill-disciplined crew, which gentle Mr. Newdegate took so much to heart, is confirmed by Mr. Staf- ford's speech ; and it will behove the Government to keep a sharp watch on the behaviour of the labourers in the winter.
The squabble of the Berkeley family has been brought before Parliament, in the shape of a petition against Earl Fitzhardinge's interference in the West Gloucestershire election. Of the fact there can be no moral doubt ; but Mr. Wakley's motion for a Committee of inquiry was resisted by the Attorney-General, on the twofold ground, that although the House periodically resolves that Peers shall not interfere in elections, it has never taken active proceedings against Peers who have done so, and that it has in fact no power to enforce its resolution. How absurd, then, to keep up the old farce of resolving ! Either a bill ought to be brought in for substantiating the power of the Commons, or the resolution ought to be dropped ; a very safe and easy course. Questions about Lord Minto's mission to Italy have occasioned declarations on Italian politics, somewhat covert from Lord Stan- ley, very explicit from Lord Lansdowne. Lord Stanley thinks that the " commercial interests " of this country should be watched ; but that if any idea is growing up in Italy adverse to
the rule of any foreign power, that ought to be " steadily re- sisted." He thinks, then, that England ought not only to ab- stain from opposing Austrian dominion in Italy, but ought to
support that Absolutist power. Lord Lansdowne avows that Lord Minto has been accredited to Italy to advise and encourage those powers in the advance of Liberal counsels, and also to mo- derate their counsels,—in other words, to make the Italians as much Whigs as possible. Lord Grey has been completing his New Zealand legislation,— that is, undoing the "constitution" statute of last year. For Lord Grey's legislation is apt to consist of two parts, like the magnet, positive and negative, one part to do and the other to undo; so that to establish a constitution in New Zealand was an incomplete act until he had abolished the constitution. It aemit that Lord Grey's work must be very hastily and imperfeetflone about, since he is so often obliged to undo it. But if he is leisWin his sinning, he is at least as rash in his penitence : for the satziefac- tion of his own mind, he sent the New Zealanders a constitution that would not work ; and for the satisfaction of Governor Grey's
mind, he wipes out the said constitution I How the colonists will take such capricious treatment, remains to be seen. Already doubts are current among them, very opposite to the published opinions about Governor Grey : they hold him also to be vacilla- ting in conduct.
Another grievance, which may prove yet more inconvenient and embarrassing, is the singular position taken by the Bishop of New Zealand. Dr. Selwyn seems to he incapable of under- standing his relation to the state ; and his latest act throws much light on his past conduct. He complains that Lord Grey has as- serted doctrines hostile to " the treaty of Waitangi," and declares that he shall go about "teaching" the Natives what are " their rights" under that nonsensical quackery, and inciting them to op- pose measures which are adverse to it. Dr. Selwyn has many admirers in England, and we believe him to be a well-meaning enthusiast ; but his conduct in the matter in question is spiritually indecorous and politically dangerous. It would be unaccountable, but for one phrase : Dr. Selwyn calls himself " the head of the missionary body "—we now remember that he appointed a mis- sionary, who was a most active anti-colonist, to be Archdeacon. In fact, Dr. Selwyn, created and sent out by the Government on a service of peace, has revived the exploded missionary agitation— all that nuisance is to, live over again. Selwyn is the John of Tuam to New Zealand—the Knibb of the distant colony ; only that he carries into the office of priestly demagogue the authority of his episcopal station in the Established Church.
