NEWS OF THE WEEK.
VOYAGERS traversing the smooth sea would little note the constant progress of the living creatures that are passing in their onward journey under the very keel of the ship, and would be more im- pressed by an occasional wanderer who comes to the surface with a splash : in like manner, it is under the surface that the mea- sures of Parliament have been pursuing their steadfast way this week, few of them having risen into the snorting and floundering noise of debate. The shoal of economical measures comes within that general description,—Spirit-duties, Soap-duties, Income-tax, Customs-acts, and others. It is the Succession-tax alone of this number that has been debated, but although debated, not seriously hindered nor mutilated.
The Opposition have persevered in showing themselves, but have not succeeded in stopping the measure or affecting any altera- tion in it. They had let the second reading pass ; and Mr. Glad- stone has not neglected at subsequent stages to insist that after doing that the House should stick to the principle of the measure. On Monday, Sir John Pakington opposed the motion to go into Committee, with a long speech of small arguments, taking excep- tion to petty details, and meeting the general measure with vague coin Taint of its injustice and so forth. After a debate enlivened hy allusions from the two Sir Johns, Pakington and Trollope, to ttid Bishops as"having no right to vote upon such a subject in the House of Lords, the obstructive amendment was negatived by 268 to l86. The clauses have had to undergo some more reluctant debate by the same party; but the Opposition has been defeated by a still more signal disparity of numbers in thinner Houses.
Perhaps the greatest mistake of the Opposition, this year, has been that unfortunate attack upon Mr. Keogh, the Solicitor-Gene- ral for Ireland. The dispute was a supplement to the Irish wrangle created by Mr. Duffy about Irish Members in the Minis- try ; but it had assumed a more English and political character when the Peers took up the subject, and Lord-Eglinton went so far as to pronounce the appointment of Mr. Keogh the " least re- putable " of those made by the present Cabinet. Mr. Keogh hap- pened to be present in the House of Lords when the words were uttered, and -he authorized the Duke of Newcastle to make the retort that offers had been made to him by the late Ministry. This was denied as a fabrication ; and Mr. Keogh made a state- ment for himself in the House of Commons.
The plain fact appears to be, that Lord Naas asked him if he would refuse office were it offered to him ?—a question which Mr. Keogh naturally interpreted to be an indirect offer ; but which Lord Naas explained to have had no aim except that of trying to disarm any disappointment that Mr. Keogh might have felt at not having an offer. To this measure Lord Naas was instigated by no less a person than Mr. Beresford, late Secretary at War, whipper-in of the Derby Ministry, and " W. B." of electioneering celebrity. Perhaps Mr. Keogh would have been more accurate had he said, not that " offers " were made to him, but overtures : but if he was deceived, the mental reservation was not his. If there has been disingenuousness, it has certainly not been on the Ministerial side.
Sir John Pakington, no doubt, while he was so impolitic as to give the affair a graver turn than it yet had, was right in saying that there was another question besides the matter of offer,—that other question being the good taste of inviting to office in a Go- vernment comprising the author of the Durham Letter, Mr. Keogh, who had "physically trampled" under foot the Ecclesiastical Titles Bill : but to this there appears to be a valid reply. In the first place, the " trampling " &c. was only " an Irish fact," and it is denied by Mr. Keo'a ; in the second place, the Government is not that of Lord John' Russell, nor is it that of any party whose se- lections needed to be governed by the oldfashioned role that might have satisfied Sir John. It is a Ministry formed on the principle
of rising above party distinctions, and of uniting all respectable parties and efficient men that would cooperate in the endeavour to carry on the business of the country and the generally approved reforms, independently of faction ; a Ministry in which the party of Mr. Keogh had a right to be comprehended, as well as that of Lord John Russell, of Sir William Molesworth, or of Lord Aber- deen. This seems to dispose of the Pakington problem. Mr. Berkeley's annual motion on the ballot necessarily did little more than ventilate the standing arguments on the subject, with which we are all as familiar as we are with the names of Berkeley and Russell. It is observed, however, that a greater number of Mi- nisters, and of others who had previously opposed the motion, now supported it. The minority is more numerous, even propor- tionately, than it has been in thinner Houses; and the measure is one which, if expectations from it have sobered down, has sur- vived the most serious objections : it stands as an experiment which the British people is making up its mind to try. Ex- perience has hitherto been all on the side of no-ballot, and upon the whole it is not favourable. The next experiment will have to be made upon the opposite side, and the time is the only question now.
The India Bill has undergone a repose this week, save that the general subject has been reviewed by the Earl of Ellenborough in the House of Peers, in a speech which evinced a great mastery of the question. To Lord Ellenborongh, indeed, must be accorded the merit of discussing the subject, with strong opinions, no doubt, with definite purpose, and even with obstinacy, but still with fair- ness, and with corresponding superiority to partisanship. His own proposal, of having a Minister for India with an Indian Council in London, is superior in the principle of its design to the. Ministerial compromise, which retains the thankless absurdity of the "double Government." Nevertheless, Lord Ellenborough, who has the idea of a better plan, is without the Parliamentary influence to carry it into effect. Lord Stanley, on the other hand, who is trying in the House of Commons to collect fragments of stray Parliamentary strength to obstruct the Government bill at its second reading, is without any plan to substitute for it. Nor could he adopt Lord Ellenborongh's plan, except at the expense of advising her Majesty to " send for " Lord Ellenborough should Ministers be defeated. The Ministerial plan, therefore, is still before thepublic without an effective rival ; and we only wish that it could have been a little stronger to meet the hostile aggression on Thursday next.
