The Sun.
London, England, 1871-02-08 00:00:00

THE EVE OF THE SESSION.

The Telegraph says :—The programme of the pre-
sent session will be filled, for the most part, with
the arrears of the past ; some of the deferred ques-
tions will certainly provoke keen debate, and debate
occupies time. Thus, if members really wish to over-
take the unfinished tasks of last year it is indis-
pensable that they should speak less and do more.
We have no desire to curtail the legitimate freedom
of debate. But it is surely unnecessary that speaker
after speaker should insist on addressing the
House when lie has nothing to say which has not
been said better, or at least as well, by previous
speakers. All that we object to is the unnecessary
waste of valuable time when there is so much to be done.
Mr. Cardwell's proposals will naturally occupy the
lion's share of the session ; but the Government will
introduce other important measures which solicit
an early settlement. Of these the Ballot Bill will claim
attention We do not anticipate that the principle in-
voked in that long controverted topic will meet with
any serious opposition, though some sharp fighting may
be expected over the details. The University Tests
Bill should of course pass into law this session ; and
we must be prepared for an obstinate resistance
in every stage. Even now a section of 3D.
Gladstone's followers will probably advocate a more
sweeping change than the Cabinet is prepared to recom-
mend ; and, whatever reaction of sentiment the Con-
servatives may expect on other questions, they can
hardly hope for a turn of the tide on this one. The
days of tests are irrevocably numbered, even though
Oxford should never have the privilege of en•
rolling a son of Lord John Manners among her alumni.
The Licensing Bill will probably rank in importance after
the measure on Tests—at least in the sensitiveness of
the interests which it touches. The session is also
likely to witness another attempt to pass an Education
Bill for Scotland, and the Game Laws can hardly
escape discussion, if not a satisfactory settlement
We may probably add a Merchant Shipping Bill to the
list, and the recommendations of the Royal Sanitary
Commission can scarcely be neglected. The Lord Chan-
cellor, too, has not been idle during the recess, and we
wish him better success than the occupants of the wool-
sack are wont to achieve in their attempts at legal re-
form.

After its six months' holiday, the Daily News remarks,
Parliament begins to-morrow its six months' work.
The session opens under circumstances of peculiar
difficulty to the Government. The public mind is
uneasy, and all political parties are in a critical mood.
When the members of both Houses took their
leave of Westminster, in the drought and heat
of a- most unusual summer, the public interest bad
already shifted from domestic questions to the foreign
war. During the whole of those six months the nation has

been a pained and silent spectator of the most gigantic
struggle in history. Our legislators went home with
the expectation of a short war and a speedy
peace ; they have returned while the war is still
uppermost in all men's thoughts and is only

suspended by a temporary armistice, with the question of
peace hanging in the balance. The position of our own
foreign questions will bear a somewhat congratulatory
reference. Good temper and self-possession have
dissipated the cloud which so suddenly gathered
in the East, and if the Black Sea Conference
has not finally settled the difficulty, it is pro-
bably in a fair way of settlement. The Wes-
tern difficulties are not in so satisfactory a
state. But a new American Minister is about to
appear in London, and there is a prospect, though distant
at present, that he may succeed where others have
failed, and may effect a permant settlement of all
outstanding disputes between us and our American
descendants. We have learned something since Par-
liament broke up for the holidays. We have learned

fthat the time of great wars is not over, that wars of aggres-
sion may still have the steady support of a great people,
and that a military system like our own, but infinitely
more perfect than our own, may crumple up like 'card-
board before the onset of an armed nation. We have
learned, too, that a new military Power is rising to
ascendancy in Europe, and that nations still measure
their influence in the world's affairs solely by the force
they can bring into the field. Hence has arisen a demand
for an efficient system of national defence. Mr. Bruce's
Licensing Bill will not be likely to rouse any great
pnpular feeling, but the Ballot Bill may once more shew
the public that a great popular movement has put a
strong popular Government in power. There will be some
fighting on foreign questions ; but it is on these
domestic questions that the great events of
the session will turn. The Government needs
that the three great Reform Bills of the session—
the measures affecting the Army, the Universities, and
the elections--should be conceived in the fullest spirit
of Liberalism if the Ministerial majority is to become as
compact as it was at first, if the support of the country is to
continue as enthusiastic, and the Ministry itself is still to
be the strongest which the present generation has seen.