IRISH AND SCOTCH REFORM BILLS PASSED.
It was easy to foresee that the English reform bill having passed, those relating to Scotland and Ireland would be equally triumphant. Deliberation was, in point of fact, at an end. Both bills had been read a first time, and had awaited on the table of the house of commons the fate of the English bill in the house of lords. The bill relating to Scotland was read in the commons on the 21st of May, the day on which the restored ministry resumed the committee in the lords on the English bill. No resistance was made to the second reading, the opposition knowing that it was hopeless, and feeling assured that this measure must follow as part of the general scheme, all the elements of which had triumphed in regard to England. Various amendments were moved in the committee, but they were all rejected by large majorities, and it passed the third reading unmutilated. In the house of lords also, as in the commons, no opposition was made to the second reading, and it passed that house on the 13th of July, The Irish bill called forth more resistance than that of Scotland, though its triumph from the first was equally certain. Mr. Lefroy moved, on its re-introduction, that it should be read that day six months. He said, that if a reform bill was to be passed at all, the present measure, in so far as the country representation was concerned, was not very objectionable; but he could discover no advantage to be derived from it in respect to the alterations in the boroughs. Seven of these boroughs had sent reformers to parliament, and eight possessed an open constituency. In the others the constituency varied from twelve to ninety-four, and none of them could be called decayed boroughs; on the contrary, they were more flourishing than at the time when they received the franchise. Of the one hundred Irish members, eighty-three were popularly returned. Where then, he asked, was the necessity or expediency of the measure? Would any rational man have deemed a reform bill necessary in England under such circumstances? And while the bill was unnecessary, he continued, it was also dangerous—dangerous not merely to the Protestant church of Ireland, but to the sister church of England, and the integrity of the empire. The fall of the Irish church would endanger the connection between the two countries. The leader of the Catholic population in Ireland had told them to choose reformers as the best means of opening the way to repealers; yet it was proposed by opening the boroughs to put them into the hands of this party—a party whose influence would be increased to an extent that no government would have power to oppose. The amendment was seconded by Lord Castlereagh, and supported by Messrs. Shaw, Conolly, and Gordon, who all said that the bill would be ruinous to the Protestant interest in Ireland. Messrs. O’Connell and Shiel defended the bill against the objections urged by the supporters of the amendment, but pointed out other defects, which they expressed a hope would be remedied in the committee. For instance, the name of the ten-pound franchise had been given to Ireland without the reality; the Irish and English freeholders, from the nature of their tenures, and the disproportion between their means, were in opposite positions to each other. In respect to houses also, the franchise was too high; and, instead of being the instrument of reform, it would be productive of corruption. Thus Portarlington, which was formerly sold by a single proprietor, would now be sold by one hundred members. In England, no man was called upon to show his title unless by previous notice; but in Ireland a scrutinising assistant-barrister examined it without any process being-served on the man who came to vote. In Ireland, also, half-a-crown was the sum paid for registry; in England it was a shilling only. Was this equality? Was this union? Could this conduce to the continuance of the union between the two countries? But while he found so much in the bill of an objectionable nature, he would support it for the good it would effect; he would support it because it would strike down the corporation of Dublin, and because it would open the borough of Belfast, whose representative had hitherto been appointed by the noble Marquis of Donegal, like his groom or his footman. After a few words of opposition from Sir Robert Peel, the house divided on the second reading, and it was carried by two hundred and forty-six against one hundred and thirty.
It was in the committee that the attacks of the Irish reformers against the bill commenced in reality. The emancipation act had been accompanied by the disfranchisement of the forty-shilling freeholders. Mr. O’Connell moved that it should be an instruction to the committee to restore the franchise to these freeholders. The Irish reform bill exhibited gross injustice. England was to have thirty members more than had originally been contemplated, but Ireland was not to derive any such advantage. It was always the way when Ireland was concerned; her aid was invoked in the battle, but when the division of the spoil came, she was forgotten. And in the present instance insult had been added to injury. The Scotch bill had been brought forward by a Scotch legal luminary. Was there no Irish gentleman to whom ministers could entrust the Irish reform bill? Ministers wished to put an end to agitation in Ireland. But how did they set about it? By perpetrating an act of injustice, which would perpetuate agitation. The amendment was supported by Mr. Shiel, who contended that the restoration of the forty-shilling freeholders was just in principle, because it would assimilate the constituency of England and Ireland, and because it would conciliate the people of Ireland without being detrimental to England. Ministers replied, that if the proposed instruction was carried, it would have, the effect of impeding, if not ultimately defeating, the measure. Mr. O’Connell’s motion was lost! by a majority-of one hundred and twenty-two against seventy-three; and he immediately moved, as a modification of it; that “the franchise should be restored to persons seized of an estate for three lives, renewable for ever, of the yearly value of forty shillings, provided that the rent did not exceed four pounds per annum, of which one-third was to be profit, and provided also that the renewal fee did net exceed two-pounds.” This was opposed by Mr. Stanley, on the ground, that it would create a minute subdivision of independent, property, and by that means would also create an immense multitude of independent voters. The motion, was not pressed to a division; and Mr. O’Connell then took up the subject of the increase of representation in Ireland. Of the five additional members, one was to be given to the University of Dublin, which was now to return two members; and Mr. O’Connell and his party objected to this arrangement, because it would strengthen the Protestant interest. Sir Robert Heron moved as an instruction to the committee, that the University of Dublin should continue to return only one member. The motion was opposed by Mr. Crampton, the solicitor-general of Ireland, who vindicated the character of the electors of Dublin University from the attacks which the Irish reformers made upon it. The proposal was rejected by a large majority: and Mr. O’Connell returned to the attack by moving, as an instruction to the committee, to extend the franchise to persons occupying freehold estates of the yearly value of five pounds. His motion was founded on this reasoning—that, as Ireland was a poorer country, a ten-pound qualification in England was a twenty-pound qualification in Ireland, and the constituency of the latter would consequently be curtailed. In his speech, he said that the object of all parties seemed to be to exclude the people of Ireland as much as possible from the enjoyment of the franchise. He was justified in making this charge, when he saw two members given to Trinity College, Dublin, in the constituency of which it was impossible there should be a Roman Catholic voter. If the system was acted on, the Catholic question still remained to be settled. Mr. Stanley complained of the unreasonable conduct of Irish members, and especially of Mr. O’Connell, who first desired alterations in the bill, and then complained that it was no longer the same. The change in the plan of registration, he said, had been recommended by Sir Henry Darnel. An alteration had also been made in the leasehold from twenty-one years to fourteen, and this was done at the instance of Irish members. Mr. O’Connell himself had entreated ministers to omit the fifty-pound qualification, which was complied with: but he had hardly effected his purpose, when he turned round and accused the government of making unfavourable alterations in the bill. Members might be astonished, but it was fact, that he had given notice of a motion for the restoration of a qualification which was omitted on his own suggestion. This motion was likewise rejected; as was another, made by Mr. Mullins, to extend the franchise in counties to leaseholders for nineteen years, at a rent of thirty pounds. Ministers, however, yielded something in the committee by consenting to extend the franchise to leaseholders for twenty years, having a beneficial interest to the amount of ten pounds. Mr. Shiel divided the house without success, to get rid of a proviso that required ten-pound voters in boroughs to pay all municipal taxes. The recorder of Dublin was equally unsuccessful in a motion tending to place Irish freemen on the same footing with their brethren in English boroughs; that is, to have their rights as freemen perpetuated, instead of terminating with the lives of those existing, as provided in the Irish bill Before the bill left the committee, Mr. Dominick Browne, one of the members for the county of Mayo, proposed a different plan for Ireland; but his proposition was not entertained by the house. The bill passed the commons on the 18th of July, and was read a second time in the lords on the 23rd. No division took place; but the Duke of Wellington stated at length his objections to the measure, which were replied to by Lord Plunkett. The bill passed through the committee in the peers almost without discussion. The only amendment of importance was one which had been rejected in the commons; namely, to place the rights of freemen in boroughs on the same footing on which they stood in the English bill, by continuing them in perpetuity instead of confining them simply to the children of freemen born after the passing of the bill. When the bill returned to the commons, Mr. Stanley declared that he felt a strong repugnance to this amendment. It was, however, allowed to stand, and by the first week of August all the three bills had received the royal assent.