EUROPEAN NEWS.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 622, 20 May 1870, Page 3

EUROPEAN NEWS.

{From the Spectator.") The Lords are sighing for work. The G-overnment, taught by the fate of the Scotch Education Bill of last year, which was introduced first in the Lords, and consequently cut to ribbons, has sent most of its important Bills this year to the. Commons first, thinking, perhaps, that " light from below " would enable the Peers to see their merits more clearly. Consequently, the Lords have nothing to do, and fear they will have too much to do by-and-by. Lord Salisbury is greatly hurt by the practice, and Lord Carnarvon said it would soon be the duty of the House to refuse all late Bills, . no matter how important ; but what is the Government to do, unless indeed it reforms the House? If it introduces Bills in the Upper House first, they are spoilt ; if it introduces them first in the Commons, they go up late, and are, so to speak, forced through the Lords by the official quorum. The real remedy is such a conversion of Peers to Bound principles as would bring them into harmony with the Commons; but then if they were in harmony, where would be the use of two harmonious bodies ? The logical position of a Second Chamber is to be either a surplusage or an obstacle. The Duke of Maryborough himself ought to be satisfied with MrPorster'a Education Bill, only that the Duke of Marlborough is never satisfied except with what all the rest of the world thinks short commons, if not starvation fare. He made a speech on education, at Oxford^ "in Bupport of the principle of extending and improving the existing system of religious education, ss advocated by the National Education Union," and though Mr Forster's Bill certainly cannot be described as one for extending and improving the existing system of religious education, it is one for improving it, and is not at all inconsistent even with its extension. At all events, the Duke of Marlborough 's gloomy remark that " we have just now history repeating itself, but with this difference," that instead of, a system of religious bigotry and intolerance, " you have now a set of men proposing to takeaway from you civil and religious liberty, and to produce in its stead an uniformity, not of one religion, but of no religion at all," — certainly this outburst of ducal gloom, we say, has no application to Mr Porstet's proposal. For anything we see in the Duke's speech, he might support Mr Forster's measure. Only he will be sure to feel for it the sort of disgust which a miser feels when he sees ample provision for ample wants. , . .