PROROGATION AND DISSOLUTION OF PARLIAMENT.
At the meeting of the house on the following Monday, after moving the order of the day for the committee of supply, Lord John Russell said that he and his colleagues had come to the determination not to bring on the alteration of the corn-laws as a government measure. He further stated that, after the late division, he felt that tire government could expect no further majorities in the house of commons, and that they would not make any further struggle for the retention of their offices until the opinion of the nation had been ascertained. A desultory conversation followed, in which his lordship expressly declared that the intentions of government were to advise that no time should be lost in dissolving the present Parliament, and that a new one should be summoned without delay. Subsequently the house resolved itself into a committee of supply; and the estimates were voted without opposition. The session was now virtually at an end, although the condemned parliament lingered on for about a fortnight after the ministerial announcement of a dissolution. In the course of that period Lord John Russell announced many bills, in more or less advanced stages, as abandoned; but he still sought to carry the bill for the better administration of justice. This bill, however, was opposed by Sir E. Sugden, who moved that it should not come into operation till the 10th day of October. This motion was carried; and Lord John Russell then declared his determination to throw up the bill altogether. It thus fell to the ground; but it was revived in the next session, and then passed into a law. After this discussion nothing worthy of note occurred; and on the 22nd of June, parliament was prorogued by the queen in person, after having previously given her assent to the appropriation and other bills. The lord-chancellor then declared parliament to be prorogued to Tuesday, the 29th of June; and on the following day the queen’s proclamation was issued, by which the parliament thus prorogued was declared to be dissolved; and writs for a new one were issued, returnable on the 19th of August. Thus terminated the first session of 1841; a more barren and unprofitable one than which is not to be found in the annals of modern parliaments. It lasted nearly five months, and yet all the great questions brought forward were still in an unsettled state. It has indeed been well remarked, that “the whole operations of this session might have been at once blotted out of the records of parliament, with scarcely any sensible effects upon the laws or institutions of the country.”