The Press. — London, England, 1857-06-06 00:00:00

THE WEEK. THE new Parliament has enjoyed its first holidays, and has reassembled for the first time in its history. This is not an unimportant fact, for Parliament is now about to enter upon the labours of the session. The Noble Premier, with all the jauntiness of air and volatile agility which distinguish him, returns invigorated by the embrace of a Russian Grand Duke; while Members and Ministerialists come back to their benches ready for work, but with an indistinct conception of what is to bo done, and a desire that whatever is done " 'twere well " that it were done quickly," for " grouse" is a word already whis pered. Few persons will now contest Mr. DISRAELI'S pithy exposure of the pretext of dissolution, " To waste a year !" for it is clear that in all the great departments of State, the social, legal, ecclesiastical, or polio tical, the Government measures of Reform are only partial or post poned. The hopes of present progress—dreams of a fabulous Liberal creed—are vanishing like the illuminated mists of the mountains where the gods of Greece held their abode. The education question, we may gather from Lord PALMERSTON'S reply last night to Sir JOHN PAXINOTON, will be fenced off, if it be possible; finance will remain unsettled ; India will not be touched ; and law reform be left incomplete. The brevity of the session so astutely interrupted, and the arrears of public business, are alternately pleaded as an excuse for doing nothing great or effectual. Happily the chief excellence of these instituti•,ns is that they contain within themselves the seeds of reformation, which, in course of time, and in spite of every obstacle, ripen into action and purge away accumulated abuses. Yet RABELAIS' coat, we shrewdly suspect, will offer the best illustration of this the first session of the new Parliament—" Nothing before, nothing behind, with sleeves of the same." We learn, too, within the last few days, that besides the War in 55, the Peace in's6, the Dissolution in '57, and the promised Reform Bill for '5B, another reason exists for doing nothing this session. The 200 "new and comparatively unsophisticated members" exhibit a turbulent tendency to hold opinions of their own. The " rude instinct of natural " benevolence " fails to influence their independence, and " the light " of plain common sense" would seem to indicate that, in spite of the soft persuasions of Mr. HATrEa, they display by a " most factious pro ceeding," the most devoted allegiance "to the most mischievous leaders." Of course, this is not the way to get on, nor even to acquire party friends, or "to get into place." But the unsophisticated, flushed with the ardour of newly•horn responsibility, refuse to listen to the voice of the Siren of Wells, or the Thunderer of Printing-house Square. Tho exhibition of Sir JAMES GRAHAM in the debate on Mr. HORSEALL'S motion on Thursday was highly interesting in some respects. The new Members of the House who had never heard the revolving Baronet before had an opportunity of judging of his elabo rate mannerism, his careful getting•up, and his odd mixture of sour remarks and saccharine compliments. The exhibition was entitled to the respect which should be conceded to a veteran performer. A certain faded air of former power, a want of freshness of views, and a disposition to play the part of laudator temporis acti, indicated that the rhetorical Member for Carlisle does not look to " a future " being before him. Much of his speech was of the kind appropriate to the " Recollections of his Life and Times " Mr. HoasFALL objected to the present constitution of the Board of Trade, and Sir JAMES GRAHAM had recourse to panegyric on the great things done by the past Presidents and Vice-Presidents of the Board. The sarcastic Baronet talked of Mr. LABOUCHERE, to "his immortal (!) credit," doing certain things. "The immortal LABOUCHERE r It is always thus with Sir JAMES GRAHAM'S compliments. They seem as if meant for interpretation per antiphrasin. His eulogy in this case reminds one of the withered immor telles that one sees at Pere La Chaise. Mr. HUSKISSON also came in for safe panegyric. That eminent person was severely disparaged in his latter years ; and while he was in the flesh, we do not recollect that Sir JAMES GRAHAM made any chivalrous attempts to defend him against a legion of adversaries. "My right honourable friend," Mr. • ELLICE, the Member for Coventry, received an historical reference from the recording lips of the retrospective orator. Poor Mr. ELLICE was reminded how he had once been an ultra-Protectionist for " native industry ;" and even a passage from one of Mr. ELLICE'S former speeches was quoted to prove the assertion of the bitter Baronet who represents Carlisle. Now, such conduct is hardly fair as between one Member of the House of Commons and another. We suspect that Sir JAMES GRAHAM gave no notice to the Member for Coventry that he was going to disinter one of his speeches made thirty years since. The exordium of Sir J. GRAHAM'S oration on Thursday thus commenced :—" Not seeing, Sir, any gentleman dis •' posed to address the House, I shall take the liberty of making a few " observations." Just as if the speech had not been under incubation for a fortnight! It was by accident that the extract from the speech of Mr. ELLICE name into his pocket. His speech, of course, was not an impromptu fait ci loisir. It is time, in deed, for Sir JAMES GRAHAM, after his forty years expe rience, to give up this " very peculiar" kind of composition. Mr. gLucE, however, eau easily retaliate by quoting emracte from " corn THE PRESS. SATURDAY, and Currency;" from the declamation by Sir J. GRAHAM against the "rival palaces" of the Duke of WELLINGTON and Sir ROBERT PEEL (temp 1830) ; from his anti-Popery speeches (1834) ; from his anti-Whig speeches in 1837; his Protectionist speeches in 1841, " with the " dismal sound of the factory bell ;" the letter-opening defences (1844) ; the " dark" attack on Recorder SHAW in 1840, and the Re corder's rejoinder ; and a few other " extracts," which could scarcely come under the head of "elegant," although they had been spoken in the House of Commons by the fashionable Mr. THOMAS DIJNCOMBE, and the eloquent ex M.P. for Edinburgh, Mr. MACAULAY. The Member for Coventry is by no means inapt at statistical calculations, and he is as well qualified as anyone else to count the unlucky whirls of the great Parliamentary teetotum, during his spinnings for forty years. But the new Members got from Sir J. GRAHAM an excellent lesson on Thursday night. The elocutionary merits of the speaker, and the personal defects of the senator never rising into a leading statesman, were strikingly exemplified in concocted harangue, de. livered with off-hand ease by the most artificial of the debaters of our time. The scheme propounded by Lord ROBERT CECIL on Thursday last, and supported by Sir FITZROY KELLY, for the abolition of personal voting anti the substitution of signed papers, was well intended, and would doubtless remove many of the evils which at present dis grace our elections. It seems to us that if the paper were required to be signed in the presence of a certain number of witnesses, it would obviate Lord STANLEY'S objection—that bribery would be facilitated by the plan. No doubt an agent might come to a voter, and receive the paper with one hand while he held out an equivalent in the other; but what is to prevent a representative of the opposite party being present as well? and why should not the voting-papers be attested by both these persons before it becomes a legal document? At present Lord ROBERT CECIL has withdrawn his motion for a select committee, with the view of introducing a Bill upon the subject ; on which occa sion the question will, no doubt, receive full consideration, and the opponents of the measure be enabled to state their objections with greater copiousness of detail. The anti-Jesuit outbreaks in Belgium have been long anticipated in THE PRESS, and their probability has been frequently pointed out in certain letters from Brussels. The antecedent facts that led to this popular demonstration may be shortly set forth. In 1830 the Belgian revolution was fomented and brought about by the Jesuits, but it is well known that the Jesuit faction did not anticipate or intend a Liberal form of Government, still less did they approve of the articles of a constitution by which they were debarred from possessing cor porate property and from the means to accumulate wealth applicable to secret and political purposes according to the custom of the order. But the anti-Jesuit party carried their day, and in consequence, ever since the establishment of the Belgian kingdom, the Jesuits have been indefatigable in striving to emasculate the national consti tution. They first attempted to alter the mode of voting, by the establishment of parish " colleges," whereby the provincial voters would have been placed under subjection to the priest. They were defeated. Next in order came the demand to possess the exclusive privilege of education. Through the exertions of MM. FRERE ORGAN and VERHAEOEN, the intent of their machinations was clearly set forth, and their designs were somewhat ignominiously ignored. And now they have pressed upon the Chamber of Representatives the proposition for a so-called " free trade in charity." The real meaning of these etablissemens de bienfaisance, is to empower persons at their dying moments, in obedience to the priest, and under the assurance of spiritual salvation, to leave their substance to the shriving confessor for purposes of charity, otherwise, in strict parlance, for the foundation and endowment of convents. Having a majority in the Chamber, the Ultramontanes calculated upon ultimate and certain success. But they did not bear in mind that the Roman Catholic population, industrial and commercial, patriotic and constitutional, sincere Roman Catholics, yet faithfully anti-Jesuit, would not consent to be subservient to a sacerdotal tyranny that history and experience have proved to he inimical to the most sacred interests of humanity. In despite of entreaty, deaf to caution, and willing to jeopardise the stability of Belgium as a kingdom, the Jesuits in the Chamber deter mined to hazard the adventure and to achieve their point. To this course they were privately urged by the Austro-Papal camarilla at Vienna, and the private secretary of the Pope, Abbe DE MERODE, belonging to the most fanatical family in Belgium, came from Rome, sub silentio, to marshal the forces and to encourage the attack. The result is known. Belgium has been saved a second time by the upright Monarch whom the Constitutional party, in opposition of the Jesuits, elected to fill the throne. His prudence and sagacity have been again made manifest when a factional section of his subjects was designedly courting confusion and attempting to overthrow the existing state of things. By the prorogation of the Chamber, the Jesuit bill has been lost, and it will require even more audacity than is possessed by the Jesuit order to introduce in the Belgian House of Representatives a similar attack upon the constitution of the country. It is well worthy of remark that these Jesuit and ultra montane malcontents are the self-same who on the first proclamation of LAMARTISE declaratory of the annexation of Belgium to the French Republic, one and indivisible, were disposed to accept the decree of such annexation, and were prepared to abandon, and did abandon, their King in that Feetige-republican emergency. Front thio 556