BILL TO REFORM THE IRISH MUNICIPAL CORPORATIONS.
A commission had been appointed to inquire into the state of the corporations in Ireland, and the royal speech had intimated that the subject would be brought forward during this session. Acting upon this report and intimation, Mr. O’Loghlen, attorney-general for Ireland, introduced a bill for the better regulation of Irish municipal corporations. In doing so he entered into many details to show the limited and exclusive nature of the corporations, and the abuses to which this had led. He proposed to remedy the abuses which had crept into the system, by a bill similar to those already adopted for England and Scotland. In regard to the seven largest towns—Dublin, Cork, Limerick, Kilkenny, Belfast, Galway, and Waterford—it was proposed that every inhabitant possessing the £10 franchise under the provisions of the Irish reform act, should be entitled to vote in the election of municipal offices. As regarded all boroughs containing a population of less than 20,000 inhabitants, it was farther proposed that every occupier of a £5 house should be entitled to vote in the election of municipal officers. With regard to councillors, the qualification in the seven large boroughs was to consist in having property worth £1000, and in the other towns, property worth £5000. In the seven large boroughs, and likewise in Londonderry, Sligo, Dungannon, and Drogheda, where the population exceeded 15,000, there would be a division of wards. Aldermen, likewise, were to be elected by the inhabitants, and were to consist of the councillors who had the greatest number of votes at the election. One half of the councillors and aldermen were to retire every three years; and in the seven large boroughs, the council was to have the power of electing sheriffs, subject to the approval of the lord-lieutenant. The bill further declared that a commission of the peace might be granted in any large borough if the lord-lieutenant thought fit, and in other towns the mayor for the time being would be the magistrate of the borough. It was likewise intended to preserve to the inhabitants of the Irish corporate towns the right of proceeding summarily by petition in cases of misapplication of public funds, instead of leaving them to the ordinary tedious process of the law, and to retain the courts in the nature of courts of conscience, and the right of their suitors to proceed by attachment. It was further proposed that government should have the power of obliging the council, if either or both the persons first chosen were not approved of, to proceed to the election of some other persons, and not, as in the case of Dublin, re-elect the same person. All the other provisions were similar to those comprised in the English bill. The bill was allowed to be read a second time on the 29th of February without opposition; but Sir Robert Peel took occasion to state the views taken of this particular mode of reforming Irish corporations by himself and the party to which he adhered. He avowed that it was not possible to defend the corporation system which existed in Ireland; but he contended that the bill would not be a remedy for the evils. Although the views of the Conservatives, as explained by Sir Robert Peel, did not allow them to oppose the second reading of the bill, yet when the motion was made that the house should go into committee, Lord Francis Egerton moved that the committee should be empowered to make provision for the abolition of corporations in Ireland, and for such arrangements as might be necessary on their abolition, for securing the efficient and impartial administration of justice, and the peace and good government of cities and towns in Ireland. His lordship said, that in substituting abolition for the process of restoration proposed by ministers, he was not withholding from Ireland any of the benefits intended to be conferred on the other parts of the kingdom by their new municipal institutions; and lie argued generally that there was much in the situation of that country, and in the state of its society, which distinguished it from England and other nations, and which might render it, in certain cases, an unfit recipient for institutions not essential in themselves to good government, and only valuable as being machinery for that purpose. His motion was seconded by Mr. Lefroy. The bill was defended by Lords John Russell, Morpeth, and Hawick, Mr. O’Connell, and other members; and was attacked by Lord Stanley, Mr. Sergeant Jackson, and Sirs Henry Hardinge and James Graham. Mr. O’Connell insisted that Ireland must have justice; and she would not have it if she was not treated as England and Scotland had been treated. Lord Stanley said, that he felt some hesitation in receiving Mr. O’Connell as the plenipotentiary of the people of Ireland to treat with the British parliament. Lord John Russell closed the debate on Lord Francis Egerton’s motion. On a division the motion was lost by a majority of three hundred and seven against two hundred and forty-three. In the committee none of the provisions of the bill underwent any important alteration, except the allowing of sheriff’s in the large boroughs to be chosen by the town-councils. Ministers listened to the objections urged against this, and retained the nomination of these officers in the power of the crown. The bill was finally passed on the 28th of March, after another debate, by a majority of two hundred and sixty to one hundred and ninety-nine.
A harder battle was, however, to be fought in the lords. On the second reading Lord Lyndhurst expressed his willingness to go into committee, but not with the intention of preserving the bill in all its present features. He did not deny that evils existed in the Irish corporations, but he wished to see some scheme adopted which would not only remove those evils, but prevent the recurrence of others of a similar kind. The present bill, however, was a bill to extend the system of exclusion, and to aggravate all the violations to which justice was now exposed. The town-councils would not consist of persons anxious for the preservation of peace and the security of property, but would be filled with men of the anti-church and Catholic party, advocates of the repeal of the union, and of the separation of British and Irish interests. His lordship argued that the five-pound qualification would increase agitation, would aggrandise radical interests. If excitement, he said, prevailed in Ireland at the election of members of parliament, how far more prevalent would be the excitement which would attend the elections of this bill. His lordship looked also, with alarm, at the formidable power which the priesthood would gain by this bill; and the town-councils, he contended, would be confined to a party of inflammatory demagogues: justice itself would be poisoned at its source, and corporate property devoted to anything but its legitimate purposes. He concluded by sketching a plan similar to that which had been proposed in the commons by Sir Robert Peel, and which he, or some of those with whom he acted, would propose should be inserted in the bill in place of the clauses containing the new corporations. The house went into committee on the 26th of April, when Lord Fitzgerald moved, as had been done in the commons, “That it be an instruction to the committee to make provision for the abolition of such corporations, and for such arrangements as may be necessary on their abolition for securing the efficient and impartial administration of justice, and the peace and good government of cities and towns in Ireland.” The lord-chancellor and Lords Holland and Melbourne spoke against this motion; and Lords Abinger and Lyndhurst supported it.. The motion was carried by a majority of two hundred and three against one hundred and nineteen. The committee proceeded on the 9th of May, and the first clause, repealing “all acts, charters, and customs inconsistent with this act,” was agreed to; and the existing corporations were thus abolished. Lord Lyndhurst moved certain amendments on the second clause, which reserved the rights of freemen; and after some debate these were carried by a majority of one hundred and seven against fifty-three. Another debate and division took place on the 22nd clause, which enacted that the boroughs should have a mayor, and a certain number of councillors and aldermen, as they were arranged in the schedules. This was struck out. And on the third reading of the bill, the Duke of Richmond proposed limiting the bill to seven of the largest towns. This motion, it was said, was not made by any arrangement or communication with the ministry. Government had never intended to preclude itself from inquiring to what towns corporate powers should be extended. What they were most anxious to preserve was, the corporation principle in Ireland. If that were maintained, the Marquis of Lansdowne said, he should not argue that corporations ought to be continued in the small towns: if any difference was to be made, it ought to be in favour of the large towns, because it was there that corporations must be useful if they were good for anything. The motion, however, was negatived; and the bill, having thus been brought into the form which the minority in the lower house had endeavoured to give it, was sent down on the 19th of May to the commons.
In moving that the lords’ amendments should be printed, Lord John Russell stated that, however willing he might be to come to some arrangement in regard to the constitution of the franchise, he would never consent to deprive Ireland of municipal government altogether, thereby stigmatising and degrading its people. The Radicals were very violent, boldly maintaining that there required an “organic change” in the house of lords. The amendments were moved, by Lord John Russell, to be taken into consideration on the 9th of June. The bill, he said, as amended, contained little or nothing of the bill which had been sent up to the lords. Out of one hundred and forty clauses, one hundred and six had been in substance omitted, while eighteen others had been introduced. A bill had been put up for regulating and renewing corporations in Ireland on the same conditions as in England and Scotland; they had received back a bill which abolished them entirely, but which preserved to many of the persons who held office in these bodies all the power and profit of their situations. In order to meet the concurrence of the lords, however, instead of abolishing the whole of the corporations, it was proposed that the larger towns, originally divided between schedules A and B should be placed in one, and that all the clauses for the government of corporate towns should be restored to the bill, with the view of applying them to these particular towns. These towns would be Dublin, Belfast, Cork, Gal way, Kilkenny, Limerick, Waterford, Clonmel, Drogheda, Londonderry, Sligo, and Carrickfergus. In regard to the other towns, he would not give them corporations; but at the same time he would not leave them subject to the provisions of the lords’ bill. He proposed rather, that the provisions of the act of 1828 should be applied immediately to twenty-two of the towns in schedule C, and that so soon as the five-pound householders in these towns had chosen commissioners, the corporate property, and the right of appointing to the necessary offices should vest in the commissioners. There would be commissioners elected by the inhabitants, instead of being appointed by the lord-lieutenant. In regard to the remaining boroughs of schedule C, as they possessed but little property, he would neither subject them to the expense of a corporation, nor compel them to elect commissioners under the act of 1828; but would leave it to them to have recourse to the latter, if they thought fit. The lords had made other alterations in other clauses of the bill, regarding the granting of quarter-sessions, &c.; but these alterations did not impair the spirit of the original bill, and therefore he would not quarrel with them. The difference which still remained between them was one of principle—should there be municipal governments or not? He thought that municipal government, placed on a popular basis, and under popular control, was excellent and useful in itself; and that in Ireland it would tend to public tranquillity, by assuaging jealousies, and removing causes of discontent. His lordship concluded by moving the rejection of the amendment of the lords on the fourth clause, which implied the continuance of corporations, and which the peers had therefore expunged. This motion led to another debate of two days’ duration, in which all the topics previously discussed were again brought forward; superadded to which were many reflections on the house of lords, and on Lord Lyndhurst in particular. On a division, the motion to reject the amendment on the lords was carried by three hundred and twenty-four against one hundred and twenty-eight; and on the 13th and 14th of June, the bill was brought back to the shape proposed by ministers in so far as regarded corporations being limited to the twelve towns mentioned by Lord John Russell. Subsequently, a committee was appointed to draw up the reasons of the house for not agreeing to the amendment of the peers; and the amended bill was delivered to the lords at a conference on the 17th of June. On the 27th, Lord Melbourne moved that the amendments of the commons should be agreed to, which motion was met by a direct negative by Lord Lyndhurst. The motion was lost by a majority of two hundred and twenty against one hundred and twenty-one; and the bill was then sent back to the commons, with the reasons of the lords for adhering to their own amendments. Finally, on the 30th of June, Lord John Russell moved, and the house agreed, that the amendment should be taken into consideration that day three months, and thus the bill was dropped.