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    No. 20. Saturday, August 10, 1850. P«»Ce...

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    In Parliamentary- Affairs Public Attenti...

    In Parliamentary- affairs public attention lias been absorbed by details—the admission of this or that member by loophole or by the regular entrance , or compromise on specific amendments between the two Houses ; a sort of public trifling which shows how low the interest has fallen .

    Nor has either House done much to revive it in these latter days . The House of Commons has adopted the two platitudes which Government proposed , in the shape of resolutions , one declaring that Baron Lionel de Rothschild could not be admitted to the House of Commons unlawfully , and the other promising that next session the House will think about that which was to have been done two or three sessions ago . There was much debate on this point , as if there had been any real queswis to leave

    tion at issue , the House , in fact , hing out that dispute which Ministers , for unstated reasons of their own , had so unaccountably held back . But , as the debate was raised upon issues wholly beside the substance of the real question , the debate itself was wholly beside those issues . The averment in the first of Lord John Russell ' s resolutions—how ashamed a Romilly must be in becoming the instrument of such a proceeding!—is simply a truism . It does not even affirm what it

    is meant to seem to affirm , and the debaters upon it were quite wrong in treating it as if it " declared the law . " It does no such thing : it presumes the law by implication ; but all that it positively declares we have stated above ; namely , that , on admission to the House as Member , Baron de Rothschild must comply with the law . All the eloquence , therefore , about the

    unconstitutional proceeding of the Commons , in declaring the law single-handed , was wasted . Ministers are perfectly right in their plea that the House of Commons cannot , by resolution of its own , repeal the act of Parliament which directs new members to take a particular oath ; whatever lawyers may say to the contrary , we hold that common sense and common honesty are equally clear on that point ; but coming from those who have withheld the true mode of proceeding , the plea is at once a niaiserie and a fraud .

    The other measures in Parliament have not been impressive . The Lords have fallen in with the compromise offered by the Commons on the Irish Franchise Bill , adopting £ 12 county occupancy and the permanent registration of the voter . Lord Stanley made a show of standing out , but the Peers had gained far too much in the compromise for him to risk the acquisition by any very obstinate resistance .

    In two recent and not unremarkable instancesthe practical declaration of the People , so far as they can be said to have a voice in Parliamentary matters , has shown it to be completely at issue with the Government : in putting forward Baron de [ Cqvntry Edition , ]

    Rothschild the citizens of London have pronounced the severest censure on the dilatory conduct of Ministers . Before the Lambeth electors were three candidates—Mr . William Williams , who has been one of the most thorough-going Members of the Radical world ; Sir Charles Napier , a roughspoken Scotchman , with an eye to the main chance and a certain sort of independence that does not

    stand in his way when he has to fight for arbitrary Governments like that of Portugal ; and Mr . Hinde Palmer , one of the new school Whigs , with extended principles in words and a manner the reverse of alarming to any party . The result , however , which gave the Radical six votes to two for the mischief-maker and one for the Whig , attests the feeling of an important constituency .

    Some stray incidents of the week have a bearing on the future rather than the present . The report on official salaries , for example , indicates two portentous facts—the growing urgency of the financial question in all its branches , and the daily increasing weakness of Government , who find themselves on this committee in a miserable and despised minority . The Protectionist addresses for a dissolution of Parliament , might create little alarm to a strong Ministry ; but to a Ministry that thus lies under the censure of its supporters among the constituencies , effective

    and the coercion of some among its most supporters on emergency in Parliament , gives to the compacted movement of the " Country Party , " so called , an importance that it would not otherwise possess . Deprived of Sir Robert Peel , deserted by their Radical allies , censured out of doors even by the constituency of their own Premier , the Whig Cabinet will be exposed , unprotected , to the assault of the Protectionists . They will depart for the holidays with the feelings of the merchant in the Arabian Nights , condemned to death by the Genie whom he has injured , but allowed to travel for a term before coming back to undergo the fatal

    stroke . The two protocols on the affairs of Schleswig-Holstein are not calculated to restore our public managers to favour . From these documents it is evident that some mischief is brewing . In the teeth of Lord Palmerston ' s " liberal" professions , in the teeth of the Financial Reform protests , and official avowals about non-intervention , Ministers are preparing to enter into some active combination with Russia and other unconstitutional States , for the coercion of the two Duchies , against the feeling and the active cooperation of Germany . The movement , unless it is a mere juggle

    throughout—is anti-popular . It is by no means certain that it will have the merit of success . The victory of the Danes appears to be not so decisive as it seemed at first . The subscriptions of money from all parts of Germany prove the wide-spread Reeling in favour of the insurgents . The Austrian Charge * d'Affaires , Jthough signing the first protocol , was absent at the signing of the second ; and the Prussian Minister was not only absent from both ,

    but has left the country on a dip lomatic tour to certain baths for the benefit of his diplomatic health . There is mischief brewing , therefore —? trouble and cost in store—with alliances almost more discreditable to « the Minister of England " than the bad understanding which he seems to have established with Austria and Prussia and the people of Germany . Widely apart from European affairs , we must not forget some set off in America . Favoured by the accidental elevation of Mr . Filhnore to the

    Presidential chair , Mr . Webster becomes Secretary of State , and General Scott acts as Secretary ^ at War ; appointments which indicate an enlightened policy . In Ecclesiastical affairs the institution of Mr . Gorham to his living under the contumacious Bishop of Exeter has only been the formal fulfilment of a conclusion already familiar to the public ; but it reminds us of the unsatisfactory condition in which Church affairs will come before Parliament

    next session . The recess is half begun . Members , who look to keep up a social intercourse of the popular kind , are " doing the convivial" at agricultural meetings , like that of Northumberland ; or blending agri * culture with science , as in the meeting of the Scottish Agricultural Society , after its year of abeyance , in Glascrow . The meetings in tne hall and on the

    green of that ever-flourishing city help to establish the cheering fact that practical science has not ceased to advance in the North . The show of stock and implements certified the progress made by the practical agriculturists ; the large attendance evinced the public interest . In the other great city of Scotland , the British Association for the Advancement of Science has held its annual Parliament with much e " clat .

    The public is in search of a sound principle on the subject of monuments to public men , and the want of such a principle is exposed by proceedings this week . At the Mansion-house a very unanimous assemblage resolves to immortalize its admiration of the Duke of Cambridge ' s good nature , either in stone or in some charitable endowment ; not a step to be gravely censured , although the object selected for this public manifestation is scarcely transcendent enough to be thus singled out . Give a monument to good nature , and " where are you to draw the line ? " At the

    meeting of the working classes , to devise a monument for Sir Robert Peel , it was suggested by a working man that the monument should be of an educational kind . The attempt made , by a professed leader of the people to disturb the proceedings , we presume because Sir Robert Peel was not a statesman of Chartist principles , shows how little our patriots have mastered the true principle of patriotism ; which is , to act for the good of your country according to your own lights , manfully to avow your convictions , and to do your best towards carrying them out in action .

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Aug. 10, 1850, page 1, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_10081850/page/1/