“III. The present workhouse system should be abolished.”
Thus, after the lapse of three-quarters of a century, has the policy of the Irish Commission of 1833 been vindicated, and the policy of the English Parliament condemned.
The Government also took up the question of municipal reform. There were at the time sixty-eight municipalities in Ireland, all in the hands of the Protestant ascendency. It was the policy of O'Connell to preserve all these municipalities and to reform them. The Government tried to carry out his policy, but in vain. Then, in 1836, they carried through the House of Commons, a Bill creating a £10 household suffrage in seven of the largest cities, and a £5 one in the others, but the measure was rejected in the House of Lords which desired the abolition of the Irish municipalities altogether. In 1837 the Bill was again passed through the Commons, and again rejected by the Lords. Peel then proposed, as a compromise—a £10 rating franchise in twelve of the largest towns, and a similar franchise in the smaller, provided the Lord Lieutenant allowed them to be re-incorporated. Lord John Russell consented to this proposal on conditions that the franchise in the small towns—corporations in posse—should be reduced to £5. For two years longer a struggle was carried on between the two parties, mainly over the question of the franchise in the smaller towns (in the event of their being incorporated). Finally, in 1840, the Government gave way all along the line, passing an Act which abolished fifty-eight [pg 317] municipalities, and conferred a £10 franchise on the remaining ten.
The Melbourne Ministry fell in 1841. O'Connell had kept the Government in office for five years. During that time they had passed useful measures for England; but in their Irish legislation they failed utterly. The Tithe Act was a sham, the Poor Law, passed in the teeth of Irish Opposition, was detested in Ireland, and the Municipal Reform Act has well been described by Sir Erskine May “as virtually a scheme of municipal disfranchisement.” When all was over, O'Connell said:
“The experiment which I have tried has proved that an English Parliament cannot do justice to Ireland, and our only hope now is in the Repeal of the Union.”
He then unfurled the banner of repeal, and threw himself heart and soul into the movement.
IV
While the Melbourne Ministry failed utterly in their Irish legislation, the administration of the country by Thomas Drummond (Under-Secretary at Dublin Castle, 1835-1840) was eminently successful. Though there were Coercion Acts on the Statute book they were not enforced. Drummond governed according to the ordinary law, and, by meting out even-handed justice to all, won popular support and confidence. However, on the fall of the Ministry, coercion again soon became the order of the day—thus:
1843-1845. Arms Act.