The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1880-07-17 00:00:00

THE PARLIAMENTARY SESSION.

The Times of Monday (in a leader) says that "dur-
ing the last twenty years the prorogation has never
been later than the 21st, and it has only twice been
later than the 15th. It was not so always. His-
torians can tell how, in the great sessions of 3835,
the House sat up to the 10th of September. But
that VMS before the electric telegraph, before the
penny post, almost before the time of railways.
We live at a different pace and under different rules
to-day. The usage of a prorogation in the second
or third week of August is so well established that a
departure from it is not lightly to be anticipated; but
it may be frankly admitted that the circumstances of
this year might be strongly urged as justifying a varia-
tion of the established custom. The ordinary sittings
were interrupted by a dissolution, and a broken session
was begun late in the season. It could not be surpris-
ing if it was found necessary to remain at work a little
longer than usual to make up for the time lost in the
middle of the spring. It is at the same time true that a,
dissolution at Easter is not an unexampled pheno-
menon, and when we turn back to former precedents, we
find that a broken session has not been followed by a
very late prorogation. There was a dissolution in the
spring of 1E57, and the newly-elected Parliament was
prorogued on the 28th of August; but even then the
prolongation of the session was really due to Mr. Glad-
stone's vehement opposition to the Divorce Bill.
There was another dissolution in the spring of 1859,
and the newly-elected Parliament was prorogued on
the 13th of August. It will be said that in those
days the control of Parliament was animated by a
different spirit from that we now know. Lord Derby
was not overpowered by a desire to legislate on many
subjects, and Lord Palmerston was too well dis-
ciplined in life to waste his tissues in unnecessary
emotions. We have changed all that. Mr. Glad-
stone, we may be told, has come into office with a
legislative burden on his back, and he can take no
rest till he is relieved from it. But this is not
strictly accurate. The difficulties to which Mr. Glad-
stone has succeeded are administrative and politi-
cal, rather than legislative. There is the Indian dif-
ficulty, overshadowing everything else, but the atten-
tion of Parliament has not been directed to it, and the
session will pass by without any legislation on Indian
questions, unless the Government resolve to invite a
contribution from the Imperial exchequer towards the
cost of the Afghan war. There are the inherited diffi-
culties of the Treaty of Berlin—the settlement of the
Greek frontier and the reorganisation of the remaining
Turkish provinces—but these are not matters
.re-
Timing the continuance of the Legislature in sessi4r.
The South African difficulty is a third trouble,little in-
ferior in moment to the other two and this also does not
call for the legislative action of, Parliament. What-
ever legislation is imperatively demanded is of a
domestic character, and it does not appear. that the
amount of it is in excess of ordinary experience. A
large number of Bills has, indeed, been brought into
the two Houses; but when we serutinir them to dis-
cover their relative urgency we find little reaso%tu
apprelend any nusual QlingaAcutitile