Page:History of the Radical Party in Parliament.djvu/464

 4 SO History of the Radical Party in Parliament. [1859- of February Trelawney's Church Rate Abolition Bill was read a second time by 281 votes to 266; but on the ipth of June, when it came up for the third reading, a curious fate befell it. On a division the numbers were equal, 274 voting on each side and the Speaker, called upon for his casting vote, gave it against the bill. Sir Morton Peto introduced a bill for allow- ing the burial of Nonconformists in churchyards, thus com- mencing a Parliamentary agitation destined to last for some years. On this occasion the bill was rejected on the second reading, the division, taken on the 24th of April, showing 155 for, and 236 against. The session closed on the 6th of August. Parliament assembled on the 6th of February, 1862. The speech commenced with a reference to the great sorrow which had fallen on the Queen by the loss of her husband, who died on the I4th of December, 1861, and to the sympathy which her Majesty had received from all classes of her subjects. The settlement of the difference with America arising out of the unfortunate "Trent" affair was also announced, and the commencement of the Mexican difficulty followed. As to domestic affairs, they seemed to enter but very slightly into the consideration of the Government, the only promise with regard to them being that measures for the improvement of law, including a bill for rendering the title to land more simple and its transfer more easy, and that other measures of public usefulness, would be submitted. On the i8th of February the Premier, replying to a rather unnecessary question put by Mr. Cox, said that it was not the intention of the Government to introduce a reform bill.* The most interesting debates of the early part of the session were those which took place on the subject of educa- tion and the famous " Revised Code " to regulate the grants of the department. This code, prepared by Mr. Lowe, had been formally submitted to Parliament at the close of the last in the previous year, been removed to the serener sphere of the House of Lords, where no such questioning was to be feared.
 * Lord John Russell, to whom the question might have been unpleasant, had,