ENGLISH INTELLIGENCE.

Evening Star, Volume VII, Issue 1910, 19 June 1869, Page 2

ENGLISH INTELLIGENCE.

(From the Home Hews.)

Although the debates on the Irish Church Bill are the one great political topic of the day, they do not excite an interest proportionate to the importance of the theme. For where a contest is so completely onesided, where one party can do nothing but protest, amid the greater or lesser impatience of its antagonists, and then it is utterly swamped, on division by an overwhelming majority', the element is wanting which gives excitement to a strife. The Houses met, after Easter, but in the Commons preceded the Irish debate. This was renewed on the loth instant, when Mr Newdegate, the undaunted member for Protestantism, resisted the going into committee. This course was contrary to the desire of Mr Disraeli, but it was acceptable to a great many Churchmen, and to all the Orangemen. Mr Newdegate himself was patiently heard, but the House waxed very impatient with some of the eight or nine who followed on the same side, and the Speaker had to interfere. Mr Gladstone at length replied, and Mr Disraeli, disclaiming any share in the proceeding of the evening, promised to show in committee that the Opposition was more compact and in accordance than was supposed by the Government. The division gave a still larger majority for the bill than had been obtained on the second reading, namely 126. Next night the House went into committee, and thenceforth a series of struggles to carry amendments was made with undeviatiug ill success. An attempt on the disestablishment clause was defeated, by 123, and on another n ght an effort to give the Church an extension of life for a year was baffled by 107. Other amendments have met a similar f a te,

and it is very doubtful whether any serious breach will be made in the bill, unless it be on the Maynooth question, Mr Gladstone has hitherto managed well; he has treated his antagonists with the utmost forbearance, and has spoken of the Church and its ministers with all fitting respect. He will press the bill steadily, and on all occasions when other public business will allow. E° r the hour, his chief adversary is laid up with gout; so Mr Hardy, the favorite Protestant cham- , pion, leads the attack, and does so with j more moderation tiian liad been expected. The fact is that Mr Disraeli is gradually 1 making his party see that the Irish Church ' must fall, and he encourages them to submission bv bolding up prospects that when this is out of the way, he shall be able to ' lead them to a more equal battle. , Our Australian Chancellor of the Exchequer performs a financial feat with bis Budget, and has gained, if not a triumph, a truce for a year. He took the House by surprise. He drew a black picture of the state nf our resources, showed how the heioic livings that had been effected in Army and JN'avv were taken away by the Abyssinian debt, and having thoroughly saddened his hearers, he suddenly burst on them with remission of taxes and a surplus. A penny comes off the income tax, the duties on locomotion are greatly lightened, a corn tax is taken off, and there are other smaller reliefs. And it is done without imposition or loan. It is effected by the process of turning assessed taxes into licenses, the money for which is to be screwed out, not by our present tax collectors, but by the Government agents, and by taking in January the taxei in a lump and in advance. This is really rather a juggle than a financial arrangement, and the House had keenness enough to see that it was somewhat of a discounting process, but it tines over the time postpones an evil day, and therefore is acceptable. Mr Lowe is considered to have done a clever thing. He did another on Tuesday night on the debate as to the site of the new Courts of Law. A vast space Las been purchased and cleared for this temple of justice in the Strand, on the north side, and just before Temple Bar (which seems to have, after many threats, a chance of being seen by many an Australian on his home tour) and most folks thought that the site question was settled. It was much approved by the lawyers, as contiguous to their places of business. But on Tuesday an arranged attack was made on the scheme, and after a long debate Mr Lowe announced that he could not approve the hitherto accepted plan, that it would cost L 4 000,000, and that the ornamentation or Low lon ought to be considered. He, on the part of the Government, recommended the purchase of land on the right hand side of the Strand, where for about a million and a half a becoming temple of law', to be seen from tbe river, might be raised ; and he actually mentioned that there was a plan by Inigo Jones, for a palace, that was still m existence and might be adopted. The House ■was too much astonished to lie able to say much, and an adjournment of the question for a month was voted, after which Mr Lowe is to produce the plan, of Government mid Jones. So that he is really the hero of the Jipur. We may as ■well connect with, this story mention that a grand reform in our Judicature is recomp;ciuh;d by the learned commissioners who have at last repotted, and they advise so radical a change that the lawyers are gasping. One Supreme Court and all emits to be mere branches of it, and all proceedings whether in lawyer (only there is to he no more distinction between these) to' he alike begun in the Supreme Court itself, and allotted according to the character of the questions. Such a reform as this W'ould indeed be an era in legal . history. Among smaller matters we note that there is an endeavor to reduce postage, especially that on printed matter. It is cheaper to post a document in Corsica, for Aberdeen, than to post it in Hie Strand for the House of Commons. Inqubies are being made on - the subject, and friends at a d-stance must be interested in knowing that there is every probability of a change. The Admiralty persists, ip spite of the wanrngs of the o.d school of naval officers, in building two vast turret ships, which shall be able to go any- . where, arid Captain Cowper Coles rejoiceth. No more wooden ships are to be built. The . Government refuses to enter upon the Irish land question, now, even to the extent of adopting a bill of Lord Clanricarde’s, for substituting written for verbal agreements in letting, and Lord Salisbury tells the Ministers that they show disregard for the laws of property, and Lord Grey holds them responsible for any Tipperary outrages of next winter. Ag‘ anan murders are frequent now, but Lord Kimberley says that he is not afraid of the menace. In the Lords occasional anticipatory debates connected with tbe Irish question arise, and Lord Bedesdale, who is so shrewd m other matters, and a tower of defence against railway nianceuverers, is so le,t to himself in this matter, that he has for the third tbue raised the Coronation Oath question. Yet it is almost ludicrous to observe the want of real logic in Ids mind. He houls that the Queen will violate her oath by permitting the Irish Church to he destroyed, and therefore he proposes that an Act of Parliament relieving her from that oath shall pass, Ttiat is she is to relieve herself by assenting to an Oath Did, though she cannot properly assent to uuother hill for doing what abe is thus to acquire power to do. It is difficult to argue with men whoso minds are in so hopeless a state of contusion. We add here that tbe Irish clergy have held a so.t of synod on the subject of the Church ; they will agree to noth’ng, listen to nothing, Mi Gladstone is a “robber” and a sacrilegious person, and so they protest and go home. They have played their game singularly ill, and it is lucky for them that Mr Gladstone is a Churchman and not a Puritan, or they would have had harder terms—in fact, some of them are thought to believe that the terms they have got are so good that it is better to clamor uselessly agamst tbe whole scheme, than to go into detail. To a debate in the Commons on the Queen's supremacy, raised by Mr D israeli for the mere sake of letting off oratorical fireworks, it is needless to refer. It bewildered the Church’s champions terribly, hut was forgotten next day.