Page:History of the Radical Party in Parliament.djvu/467

 1865.] Palmerstoris Last Administration. 453 item of domestic policy. " Various measures," it said, " of public usefulness and improvement will be submitted to your consideration," but neither Parliament nor country were of sufficient importance to be told what direction their thoughts and labours would be invited to take. If he could get through without a disturbance in foreign affairs, the Premier did not intend to give the Conservatives anything to oppose at home, and the Radicals could bring forward no proposition, saving the improbable one of a direct vote of censure, on which they could receive support from the other side. So it was likely, as Lord Derby said in speaking on the address, to be " a quiet, humdrum session." It was indeed uphill work to keep alive the cause of reform in such a Parliament, and with such a minister in power. The Radicals, however, went through the process with commendable spirit, if with decreasing success. On the 6th of February Trelawney once more rallied to the anti- church rate contest, but on the 2Qth of April the second reading of his bill was rejected by 285 to 275, a falling off even from the low standard of the past year. The Endowed Schools Bill, which was introduced on the 6th of February, did not go to a division on second reading. The Burials Bill was again thrown out on the I5th of April, by 221 to 96. The most interesting debates on religious questions were those which took place on the Irish Church, which now came up for serious consideration, after having been put on one side since the great Whig desertion of the Appropriation clause in 1838. On. the 28th of May Mr. Dillwyn moved for a select committee on Irish religious endowments, and after three adjournments the order was discharged to give place to a motion by Bernal Osborne, on the same subject. This was brought forward on the 26th of June., and the debate was continued on the 29th, when the motion was shelved by an adjournment of the House. It is almost needless to say that this revived attention, given to an Irish question, was partly to be accounted for by the signs of coming trouble in Ireland. Once more there