The Press.
London, England, 1858-05-08 00:00:00

HOUSE OF COMMONS—TuzepAy.
SALE AND TRANSFER OF LAND IN IRELAND.

Mr. WHITESIDE moved for leave to bring in a bill
to facilitate the sale and transfer of land in Ireland.
As the act establishing the Encumbered Estates
Court would expire in two or three months, it was
necessary, lie observed, to consider and decide what
was to be done in this matter and with the tribunal
itaelf. The first question was whether a mere Con-
tinuance bill should be introduced, or whether the
Government, with the materials before it, should
endeavour to deal with the whole subject, and sub-
mit a plan comprehensive in its operation. They
had adopted the latter course, and the bill proposed
to extend the principle of giving a parliamentary
indefeasible title to tiered as well as encum-
bered estates, and to empower the conit constituted
by the bill to be permanent, and to be called the
Landed Estates Court, to exercise certain functions
now appertaining to the Court of Chancery.
Mr. J. FrrzoERALD approved the principle of the
bill, but refrained from giving any opinion upon the
mode of carrying it ir.to operation until he saw the
whole measure.

Sir E. PERRY thought the principles enunciated
by Mr. Whiteside sound and practicable.
Mr. DEASY likewise considered the bill as a,very
great improvement of the law of Ireland.
Suggestions were offered by Mr. Dobbs, Mr.
Horsman, Mr. Matins, and Mr. De Vere, which were
replied to by Mr. Walpole and Mr. Whiteside, and
leave was given to introduce the bill.
THE DANUBIAN PRINCIPALITIES.
Mr. GLADSTONE moved an address to her Majesty,
to submit to her Majesty that this house, bearing in
mind the obligations imposed by the Treaty of Paris
so far as they affect the Danubian principalities, has
observed with satisfaction the general tenor and
spirit of the declaration recorded by her Majesty's
Chief Plenipotentiary at the Conferences of 1856
concerning the future organization of those terri-
tories ; and to convey to her Mejesty the earnest
hope of this house that, in the further prosecution
of this important subject, just weight may be given
to those wishes of the people of Wallachia and Mol-
davia which, through their representatives elected in
conformity with the treaty, they have recently ex-
pressed. First among the reasons in support of
the motion he placed the wish and ardent desire of
almost the entire population of the Principalities for
this union, which had been sanctioned by the suze-
rain power in 1834 in a public and authoritative
document. There were, he remarked, but three
Powers represented at Paris to whose opinion upon
this question any great moral weight was attached—
namely, France, England, and Sardinia, whose judg •
ment was sure to carry with it the mass of European
opinion—and a solemn pledge was given by their
plenipotentiaries, afterwards embodied in the Treaty
of Paris, that the qne.stion should be referred to the
judgment of the people of the Principalities. Mr.
Gladstone then adverted to the result of the appeals
by the Divans ad hoc to the people of Moldavia and
Wallachia, who were, he said, almost unanimous in
favour of the union, and he ridiculed the idea of
leaving the question to be decided afterwards by five
or six commissioners. He admitted that the people
had expressed a desire fur something more than the
union. Four of the additional points were, in his
opinion, reasonable ; the fifth was that the Princi-
palities might be united, not under a prince or
chief taken from one of the native families, but from
some foreign family. If there was anything ob-
jectionable in this demand, the pledge solemnly
given ought not on that account to be abandoned,
and the paramount objet of the Roumanian people,
which was the best possible measure for their wel-
fare, should not be disappointed for purposes that
were to subserve views extraneous to their interests.
If the union did not take place, the Principalities
would be a constant source of anxiety to European
policy; if they were united, between Russia and
Turkey would be interposed a living barrier; and he
denied that the union would have the slightest effect
• injurious to the Ottoman empire, which bad not, and
never possessed, the sovereignty of the Principalities.
Mr. S. FITZGERALD, atter adverting to the diffi
catty he encountered in dealing with a subject to
which he feared many members had not given suffi-
cient attention, and iu replying to a speech which
enlisted the sympathy of a popular assembly, argued
that the motion was utterly unprecedented, and cal-
culated to lead to serious consequences. At the time
when this question was about to be decided by the
Conferences at Paris a vote in favour of the motion
would be considered as an instruction of the House
of Commons to the assembled representatives of
continental Europe. The object of the Treaty of
Paris was to maintain the territorial integrity of the
Turkish empire. Everything that impaired that
integrity was regarded as a matter that affected
Europe. The effect of the motion was to dismember
the Turkish empire; the population of the Princi•
palities declared that the union not under a foreign
prince was the last thing they desired ; that it would
not diminish, but aggravate, the evils under which