The Sun.
London, England, 1868-06-23 00:00:00

LONDON, TUESDAY, JUNE 23, 18G8.

The House of Commons has again had to
sit in judgment on past affairs. Surely there
never was a Session in which so many errors were
recorded, and so much fault-finding ensued. The
grand cause of offence on the last occasion was the
"count out" of Friday. Mr. MONK and some
others had notices on the paper for that evening,
and were consequently annoyed at the catastrophe.
In such cases ;the usual resource is to blame the
Government, and the rule was not departed from
in ithis instance. Mr. DISRAELI made a tolerably
good defence for the Treasury benches, however,
and said that the Government had done their
duty on this occasion by making a " House,"
and that it was evident that those who
had business on Friday had as much
to do with "keeping" the House as Ministers had.
Some desultory conversation, the object of which
was to prove that the Government officials had
prevented the House being made, in contradiction
of which Mr. HARDY said that they themselves
had been surprised at the affair, and, indeed, the
business of the Government had been hindered the
most. Some diversion was made at last to the reite-
ration of the same arguments by the remarks of
Sir H. EDWARDS and Mr. VANCE, for they said
that the real blame rested with the Opposition. A
Liberal member moved the " count-out," which
gave rise to so much displeasure, and the pur-
port of it was to avoid the awkwardness
that would ensue from the non-agreement
of the Liberal side of the House on
the motion to throw open 2 rinity College, Dublin.
Mr. FAWCETT is not to be daunted, however, and
has given notice that he will renew his motion on
Irish Education in the Universities. The discus-
sion on the Lords' amendments to the Sea Fisheries
Bill was taken next, and resulted in the House agree-
ing to them, but not until two divisions on the sub•
ject had been taken. Upon the House going into
committee on the Government of India Act Amend-
ment Bill, Lord WILLIAM HAY entered into a dis-
cussion ms the relations of the Secretary of State
and the Council. Many of the arguments were
repetitions of the statements heard so often on this
subject, but the interest and importance of all be-
longing to Indian affairs will always insure atten-
tion to the subject. The Irish Reform Bill, as
" amended," was considered, and, of course, the
usual arguments on the subject were renewed by
Irish members. The insufficiency of the measure
was declared to be a great drawback to its success,
and Mr. POWELL certainly spoke out plainly, if not
very eloquently. He said that it was a " very
small and a very ridiculous measure ;" but the
chief point of his speech was that the English and
Scotch Liberals had acted ill in not supporting the
Irish members more effectually. In fact, they
had " basely abandoned them, after they had
spent a veat deal of time and trouble in
carrying the English and Scotch Reform Bills."
There was about as much reason in all this as may
generally be met with in such objurgations. In the
first place, it could not have been a waste of time
to pass the other measures, if they were desirable
ones ; and as for the " emphatic protest" which Mr.
BAGWELL entered against the bill, he might have
remembered that the Government were not at all to
blame for the hurried manner in which the Reform
Bi'l had to be finished, or the weary spirit with
which hon. members came to the work. The
leader of the_ Opposition, and those who gave him a