NEWS OF THE WEEK.
TRBLAND has again been the prominent topic of the week in Par- liament, with new incidents to mark her deplorable state and the small confidence that can be placed in measures for her aid. The bill for granting 620,0001. to three Irish railways came be- fore the House of Commons for the second reading; and although it was carried past that stage by a decisive majority, the debate was seriously damaging to the Queen's Ministers. Opposition was made to the bill by the independent section of the Ministerial side, and by the ex-Ministerial section of the Opposition : the bill was carried by the conjunction of Lord John Russell and Sir Charles Wood with Lord George Bentinck and Mr. Disraeli, against Sir William Molesworth and Mr. Roebuck with Sir James Graham and Mr. Cardwell. But in debate the Whigs stood quite alone ; for their Bentinck auxiliaries gave support without any real alliance, and with supercilious condescension.
The objections taken to the bill by its direct opponents were the arguments used by Ministers themselves against Lord George Bentinck's plan ; and were, mainly, that railways do not give em- ployment to unskilled labourers at all proportionate to the outlay ; and that in the bad state of the money-market, with the prospects before us, this is not a time to be making superfluous advances in aid of speculation. The Bentinck party exultingly declared that the reproach of inconsistency was true ; for they were supporting Ministers to recant their own arguments. Not only so, but these detrimental allies confessed that they seized the measure as the point of the "wedge" with which to force the rest of Lord George's scheme upon the very Ministers who resisted it. The Ministerial case was made to rest upon the particular merits of the railways. We are not, said Ministers, adopting Lord George Bentinck's plan of indiscriminate aid to Irish rail- ways generally, but we are only establishing certain railways recommended by the Railway Commissioners as likely to conduce to the prosperity of the country. That, no doubt, is a case for the bill—the railways in question are likely to be useful, es- pecially the one to Cork : but it is no case for Ministers. When the bill was introduced, they spoke of aiding, not only these par- ticular railways on special reasons, but any Irish railways that should have complied with certain conditions, and particularly that should have paid up fifty per cent of their capital ; and it is only a fortuitous circumstance that these three railways are the undertakings which fulfil that condition. And, as if to make all sure, Lord John Russell declared at the close of his speech, that the present bill is only the beginning of "a system" which is henceforth to be pursued. There is, then, henceforth to be a system of encouraging Irish
speculations out of the Imperial exchequer. Now, waiving all debate about favouritism, can we trust the Irish to make even a tolerably fair and honest use of Imperial patronage? Will not Lord John's " system " prove an imitation of Shannon jobs on a railway, a Hudsonian scale of magnitude? What is the manage- ment of Irish railways ? It is made a boast by Sir Charles Wood, that one of the three railway companies whom he now favours has bought its engines, its carriages, and its rails and only lacks its earth-works. Such is the management of a railway picked out for Ministerial encouragement ! Are railways a safe investment in Ireland, or thought so ? It ought to be explained how it is that these three undertakings, so promising and so flourishing in the Ministerial description, cannot raise their capital. Probably, because of such "public instruction" as we saw some time ago in a journal of the country, teaching the Irish people how to tear up the rails and turn them into pikes for purposes of rebellion.
If there were no other evidence of the incapacity of the Irish to obey what we in England hold to be among the dictates of the
commonest honesty and good sense, it would be the current report of the Relief Commissioners. The Commissioners report the continuance and wide extent of monstrous abuses " in very many districts" : local Relief Committees give out rations by wholesale, exceeding the applications in number—in fact, it is not the starving, but the rations supplied at Imperial cost, that go a begging ; members of Relief Committees place their own ser- vants and tenants, even such as have some substance, among the recipients of relief; members of the Relief Committees encou- rage intimidation; and among those implicated in these abuses are Magistrates in the commission of the peace. Irish Members call for proofs—in order to exonerate the innocent, and to hold up the guilty to opprobrium ; which seems but just. Yet who doubts the existence of the alleged abuses ? We have had in- stances before specified and distinctly reported not only by offi- cial persons but by newspapers : Captain Wynne's case, for in- stance. Ministers decline to expose the delinquents : it would, they say, create "bad feeling' ; people would defend them- selves, and there would be troublesome counter-statements. Other grounds of forbearance also exist, though not avowed by Ministers : to expose corruption in Ireland is unpo- pular—not accordant with " conciliation "; and might be very inconvenient in its consequences if enforced just before a general election. The untoward timidity of the Ministerial posi- tion is scarcely less disheartening than the social depravity half disclosed. Ireland is not the place for compromise and indecision, least of all now, when dearth is combining with natural sloth, natural recklessness is increased by despair, and a self-dooming corruption possesses the land, sapping the very institutions of so- ciety. Let our rulers conciliate the Irish—let them be as kind to misery as it is possible to be, help the feeble to the utmost extent of our power ; but do not let them, in helping Ireland, consent to abandon English standards of social virtue. They are then encouraging the corruption which is the fatal disease of Ireland, at a time when to introduce a more healthy feeling, to raise the pensioner nation to a higher standard of virtue, is most necessary, and most feasible.
The Health of Towns Bill has suffered another Ministerial vic- tory. It was opposed on going into Committee, but not with any weight of influence. On getting into Committee, however, it encountered Lord Morpeth ; who, like Medea, hath a murderous furor towards his own child. In this paroxysm he lopped off one of the five Commissioners. There is every prospect that the bill can be carried, if any of it be rescued from the Chief Commis- sioner of Woods and Forests. Sir Peter Laurie made some way in "putting down" suicides : Lord Morpeth, whose case much resembles suicidal mania, should be taken before Sir Peter. If not, he will be the death of his own bill.
Lord Brougham has displayed his accustomed energy in grap- pling with two troublesome subjects. The bill for altering the constitution of the Poor-law Commission furnished an occasion for making a stand in favour of the law and its real adminis- trators, with a corresponding censure of those administrators who betrayed their trust and evaded the law they were appointed to carry out, because they flinched from hostile observation. Lord Brougham produced a piece of anonymous testimony against the recreants, in the shape of a letter from some Assistant Commis- sioner, who declares that he always expected to be given up as a victim if he were attacked in the newspapers. The charge proves at least a lamentable want of confidence between the Board and its officers. As evidence against the Commissioners, it is perhaps not untainted : the writer finds it as easy, and now as safe, to at- tack "the Kings of Somerset House" in their decadence, as he formerly found it annoying to be a mark himself for attacks by Anti-Poor-law agitators, without any assured support.
The same learned Lord has given a decided impulse to the growing opinion in favour of transferring the private business of Parliament to some other tribunal. The energy which Lord Brougham bears into the evening of his life is extraordinary,—if indeed it prove to be evening, when it seems but early afternoon, so active and unceasing is that energy. He is one of the few who take trouble. The sketch of the history of private business, from its origin in "petitions" for redress of local grievance to the present unmeasured chaos of "bills," " is interesting, and helps usefully to elucidate the subject. It shows how fortuitous has been the growth of the private business, and how subordinate it
is in a " constitutional " point of view. And he has wrung haat the leading Minister in the House of Lords an admission that some change is necessary. Lord Lansdowne only pleads in ex- cuse for present inaction the late period of the session." D is ni to be hoped that, after such an admission, the vigilant Brotigli
will not let Ministers rest, next session, until th0 shall have produced a measure.
