it to a Committee. It was a speech that would have defeated the Government, but for Lord Grey’s conciliatory offer to go on with the Bill even if the House struck out the clause enabling Colonial Legislatures to alter their constitution, and the clause enabling the Colonists to form a Federative Assembly. This won for the Government a majority of 13. As the clause sanctioning a Federative Assembly was carried in the Lords, against the bitter opposition of the Tories, only by a majority of one, it was eventually abandoned. They further marred the Bill by conferring exceptional political privileges on wealthy squatters, and by prohibiting any Legislative Chamber from eliminating its non-elective element. The interesting thing to notice is how the Tory Party of the day completely stamped out the germ of that Imperial policy of Colonial confederation which Lord John Russell and Lord Grey so wisely strove to plant. As “amended” by the Lords, the Bill passed into law, much to the satisfaction of the Queen, who, when she sanctioned the measure, felt sure that a vigilant personal superintendence of the details of Colonial, as well as foreign affairs, would not thereafter be added to the already arduous duties and anxieties of the Sovereign. Ireland, as usual, was this Session the object or victim of an eleemosynary financial policy. She had hanging over her, in the shape of relief loans made during ten years, an unliquidated debt of £4,483,000. Besides that, some of the Poor Law Unions were so burdened with debt contracted for local purposes--frequently purposes of jobbery--that they needed help. Lord John Russell therefore proposed to consolidate the unliquidated local debts since 1839, and, subject to existing conditions of interest, extend the period of repayment to forty years. For the immediate relief of bankrupt and semi-bankrupt Unions he proposed another advance from the Treasury of £300,000. The justification for these loans, which were sanctioned, was that the Irish landowners could not pay the interest on the local debt, in addition to the existing poor-rates.