NEWS OF THE WEEK.
NEVER within our experience (and that has been neither brief nor unobservant) has the opening of Parliament excited so little atten-
tion, so little manifestation of hope or fear. The session seems to be regarded as a thing of course, which must be gone through, like the winter, wanting the winter's practical utility. People have ceased to expect any thing, for they have so often been disap- pointed: the magnificent promises of " Reform" have become a byword. This session, howeier, begins with no such promise, no such expectation. Yet people may be again disappointed : coun- terfeits must be nearly exhausted; and if parties wait upon the event, why even the event, not being at the mercy of Whig Go- vernments, may bring forth "something rich and strange." The Speech from the Throne is not calculated to awaken dor- mant expectations : it is said to be the shortest that ever was
known, and is certainly the most singularly felicitous in saying nothing : it was framed so that all parties might agree to echo it in the Addresses, and all parties have agreed to echo it. The present Ministers never performed a task with such complete suc- cess. In order to obtain that happy result, however, it was of course necessary to exclude from the Speech almost every topic of public interest : the more urgent the subject, the less could it be adverted to by the Sovereign on meeting the Great Council of the Nation. Hence occurred those omissions which have provoked animadversion both in and out of Parliament. To have mentioned the war in India, the Boundary disputes with the United States, constitutional reform in Canada, the discontent and embarrassment generated by fiscal abuses at home, would have elicited discussion, and have provoked a trial of strength, most prudently to be avoided. Yet some omissions were as bad as positive assertions, and of that land was the absence of all allusion to France. The absence of the statue more strongly marked the presence of Brutus's memory, than if a colossus had been borne in the procession : France was the thing most looked for in the speech ; a hacluded compli- ment would have had the desired effect of getting over the occa- sion without comment, but the silence appears to mean some- thing. Luckily, the apparent slight to an irritable people, already hi a state of exasperated feeling, will be counteracted by the deep sense of the impropriety, which has been shown here. To the broad and temperate views expounded by Mr. GROTE in the one House, and the earnest claim upon the friendship of France by Lord BROUGHAM in the other, the stamp of authority has been added by the expressions of the Ex-Ministers, the Duke of WELLINGTON and Sir ROBERT PEEL; while the Whin' Ministers themselves have al- lowed, that they were only deterred from a friendly and conciliatory mention of France by some red-tape punctilios—and, it ought most likely to be added, by the fear of provoking discussion and disturbing the " harmony and sunshine" which Mr. GRANTLEY BERKELEY besought for the Address. The French people will therefore perceive, that there is no desire to °Tend, no indifference as to giving offence on the part of the English people ; but only that the most insignificant party, whom conflicting circumstances allow to occupy for the time the prominent place, have neither the sense nor the courage to give utterance to the notorious sentiments of the nation whom they pretend to represent.
The debate on the Address, in each House, on Tuesday night, turned upon the only paragraph of the Speech which enunciated any thing upon any important subject—that which related to the Eastern question ; and it was discussed by most of the speakers with a reference to France. Mr. GROTE was the only one who stuck to the subject, grasped it, and made it tell its story. He showed into what scrapes England had been brought, being made answerable in detail for the successes of the feeblest Government in Europe; a Government which has perpetually to run the gaunt- let between encroaching neighbours and rebellious vassals. He said truly, that, assuming England to be pledged to maintain the inviolability of Constantinople, it was not by fighting in each of the Sultan's little quarrels that she was to do so, but by the " terror of her arms," which would alone effectually restrain the greater offenders from giving just occasion for their employment. The life-and-death battle for the Ottoman empire will be fought, not in Syria or Egypt, but in European Turkey and its waters. Mr. GROTE was replied to by Lord Jonx RUSSELL with hypothetical special-pleadings, and by Lord PALMERSTON with some bureau- cratic technicalities. The gist of Lord Joux RUSSELL'S speech is, not that Ministers have done well, but that they might have done worse; of Lord PALMERSTON'S, that every thing was done in due form.
One of the very few important subjects which the rule of its composition admitted into the speech was the Poor-lrw. Though some smart discussion and some degree of interest may be created by renewed attempts during this session to extinguish the Commis- sion, Ministers are too secure of the support of the Tories, as well as of the Whigs and Radicals, to fear any formidable difference of opinion on that score. They were therefore able to add one para- graph the more to their little speech, and that one of the most showy in it—the one that looked most like business.
The Whig Ministers have introduced one curious "reform" into the Speech, in the paragraph which relates to money. It has been the immemorial usage to announce to the faithful Commons that the Estimates have been framed with all due regard to economy ; an announcement which has too commonly originated some dis- appointment at the profusion which was found in the Estimates when actually produced. The present Ministers have removed that standing cause of disappointment : they do not promise that the Estimates shall prove to have been framed economically, but, with more judgment, they place economy and their Estimates anti- thetically : " However sensible of the importance of adhering to the principles of economy," they feel it their duty to recommend " that adequate provision be made "—and so forth. This is no new caprice : the same significant antithesis was hinted last year, but so delicately, that it escaped remark until attention was directed to it by the bolder variation this year : in 1840 the paragraph was phrased thus—" Adhering to the principles of economy,' which it was their desire to enforce, Ministers felt it their duty to recom- mend " that adequate provision should be made "—and so on. The next step in improvement will be to sweep away the cant
about economy altogether, and put forth the naked " recommenda- tion " to spend as fast as possible. The acute and sensitive minds in " the City " seem to have perceived at once what was coming, and the innovation in the Speech was no sooner known than it was answered to by an instant fall in the Funds.
Neither the prospects of the session, however, nor the debate, had much to do with the empty Speech from the Throne, and there was no difficulty in reechoing that in an address; a counter-address moved by Mr. HUME, reading Ministers a lecture upon their omis- sions, notwithstanding : the amendment was withdrawn by Mr.
HUME himself, as a matter of course. The vacation, it seems, has not made some Radical Members forget their habit of withdrawing amendments.
