NEWS OF THE WEEK.
THE first week of the session has shown Ministers maintaining, upon the whole with consistency and quiet vigour, the position which was anticipated for them, and was indicated in Lord John Russell's programme. They carry on the administration with mo- deration and energy ; promoting some of the principal reforms re- specting which public opinion is quite matured, but declining to be urged by other parties beyond the proper scope of their own constituent principles.
A desire has been exhibited in more than one quarter' to force them into a position in our foreign relations which they have not purposed to take up ; but they have completely succeeded in hold- ing to their own. Mr. Kinnaird, moved by an honest zeal, has urged them to more positive intervention in the case of the Madiai ; Mr. Disraeli and Lord Clanricarde, apparently coquetting between the 'Peace party and the Bonapartist-Malmesbury interest, urged them with taunting " interpellations " either to disavow Sir Charles Wood's thoroughly English language about a gagged press, or to assume an out-and-out Anti-Gallioan attitude : but they have avoided the snare, by going straightforward between the two pits prepared for them. Sir Charles Wood disavowed any techni- cal breach of etiquette ; but claimed the right of an Englishman, although he might be a British Minister, to take note of what is passing on the Continent. And Lord John Russell exercised that -right, when' in a spirited and cogent note, he instructed the British Minister at Florence to make a new appeal on behalf of the Madiai. Ministers maintain a position of neutrality abroad, but not of apathy ; they preserve what is diplomatically called" friendly re- lations" with foreign powers, but thus far they do not appear to disguise the sympathies of England.
As the details of their Colonial reforms come to be explained, their fidelity to the principle of responsible government and local management of local affairs grows more distinctly evident. In 1840, after the Canadian rebellion, it was very desirable to let the Canadians take the management of the Clergy Reserve fund into their own hands; and a measure for that end was passed. But, at such a time, it was also desirable that the Government measure should be such as to pass both Houses of Parliament with unanimity ; and we know that, under such condition, it could. not be thoroughgoing or satisfactory to the colonists. It was neither ; and it now falls to the present Ministers to do the work completely. Sir Robert Inglis cries out "No!" when the Speaker puts the question ; and the Bishop of Exeter raises a sort of Church in danger" cry ; but Ministers go on. So likewise Lord Campbell and other Judges have an idea that transportation is the best of secondary punishments: but the Duke of Newcastle simply 'explains that transportation to Australia will be discontinued forth- with, save that certain very limited arrangements to which Go- vernment is pledged in Western Australia will be fulfilled,
In Home politics, Ministers have in like manner resisted extra- neous urging. Mr. Frewen asks to abolish the Hop-duty : but Mr. Gladstone will not let Mr. Frewen touch his Budget. Lord Cardigan, assuming the post of an advanced reformer, demands the abolition of the Irish Lord-Lieutenancy: but Lord Aberdeen declines to adopt a reform not in his category. And very pro- perly: although the practice of obliging the member of the Im- perial Ministry for Ireland to reside in Dublin imparts much vacillation to the Irish policy of every Ministry, by exposing it to concentrated local interests and intrigues of the pettiest kind, still, so essential a change as the abolition of the -Viceroyalty could only be undertaken by a Ministry firmly established in its seat, or supported by a popular clamour and in a session not over- burdened by other more immediate questions of Imperial concern.
Jaw-reform is among the subjects of home polity on which pub- lie opinion is most matured, and Ministers place it early in their plan of proceedings. They are evidently sincere in their purpose, and nothing has occurred to gainsay the expectation, that if the present Cabinet should endure, its term of office will be distin- guished by the proper amount of work done in a department where party conflict is for the time in abeyance. It is an accident that the start made by their Lord Chancellor is not happy. According to the ordinary rules of selecting a Lord Chancellor, no reflection can be made on the appointment of Lord Cranworth; who had made an excellent Judge in the Court of Exchequer, and had fairly earned his promotion. Nevertheless, when he sat down after his long speech of announcement, on Monday, it is noticed that there were no encouraging cheers from his friends, though probably there were regrets. His speech was encumbered by repeated apo- logies for his own over-conscious zeal to be doing something in the direction of law-reform, and at the same time for his doing so little. He praised the results of amendments in Common Law procedure, —enough for the time, he thought; and spoke at the Ecclesiastical Courts ; but, stripped of apologetic and irrelevant matter, what he proposes to do is, substantially, to revive Lord Campbell's Land Registration Bill, (in the face of a far better plan which Solicitor-General Bethell supports,) to amend Lord Truro's Bill of 1850 for Amending the Laws relating to Charities, and through the aid of Mr. Bellenden Ker and two or three subordinates to consoli- date the Statutes at Large. His reason for not taking the Ecclesi- astical Courts in hand seems to be the " interests " of those odious establishments. Thus, Lord Cranworth is deterred by the diffi- culty of legislating on the Ecclesiastical Courts, and finds no diffi- culty in executing a "Code Victoria" by deputy ! If we ask where he can have been living, that he should still hold these an- tediluvian ideas, the answer must be, in court, faithfully adminis- tering the details of the law. With Charles Bnller's testimonial to Mr. Baron Rolfe fresh in our memory—with the most un- feigned respect for Lord Cranworth, whose conduct on the bench has sustained the highest character of the English judgment-seat, and whose very speech that disappoints us commands sympathy from its,ealmest and ingenuous manner—it is of no use to disguise the too obvious fact, that he is not suited to the place he occupies at the head of lawmakers. The apprehensions that the cause of Law-reform might suffer from the change of Ministry have been in part justified by this speech of Lord Cranworth. For a Chancellor once prejudiced against reform, but for the time animated by party zeal to do that work of the day creditably, the change of Ministry has substituted a lawyer probably above party zeal, and the reverse of being above the average as a maker of laws. At the same time, the substitution has converted an efficient law-re- former of the Woolsack into a troublesome if not carping critic of the Opposition benches. The situation of affairs reminds us, that one law-reform is needed as the key to many others—a reform pointed out by Lord John Russell a dozen years ago—a reforni which should leave the Lord Chancellor to fulfil the absorbing duties of his own proper office, and should give to Parliament and to the Executive the aid of a separate Minister of Justice.
