The Sun.
London, England, 1841-02-24 00:00:00

had passed before our senses, to matters which parties might I
have seen or heard, prejudice or passion would frequently
so warp men's minds as to make them give versions of the
same occurrence perfectly different the one from the other--
and if this were the case as to matter of fact what must it
be as to matter of opinion ; why, the differences in that case
caused by interest or passion were so great, hat in many
cases of matter of opinion it was impossible to rely on human
testimony. This was the case in all matters of opinion, more
particularly must it be so in questions of opinion af-
fecting the franchise, where there must necessarily be so
much conflicting testimony, and this was more par-
ticularly the case with respect to the Irish franchise,
than to the English one, because the Irish franchise was prin-
cipally a 101. leasehold one, while in England the greater part
of the constituency consisted either of freeholders or tenants at
will, the leaseholders constituting but a small portion of the
electoral body. With respect to the 40s. freeholder, the free-
hold must indeed be of little value if it was not greatly above
that required by law, but in Ireland the Legislature had
thought proper to give a 101. leasehold franchise instead of a
40s. freehold one, and the 101. leasehold franchise, which was
not a common one in England, was the most common one in
Ireland, and that was the reason why the defects inherent in
the nature of the franchise itself appeared so much more glar-
ingly in the one country than in the other. That was in itself
an evil, but to that evil was superadded the still greater mis-
chief of an ambiguity in the law.—(Cheers.) By the Act of
1829 the test of the franchise had been determined to be what
a solvent tenant could afford to pay over and above what the
tenant paid. By the second clause of that Act, and by the
oath in the third schedule of the Act, that definition of the test
had been distinctly laid down by the Legislature : amongst the
tests which Parliament in its wisdom had at that time thought
right to apply to the investigation of the franchise, was a form of
oath to be administered to the Jury appointed at the Assizes
to try questions of appeal relating to the franchise. That
oath was altogether omitted from the Reform Act, and all
clauses relating to it were withdrawn from the body of the
Bill. A question then arose not only with respect to the free-
hold franchise but with respect to the leasehold franchise,
which had not existed under the former statute, but which
owed its existence entirely to the Reform Bill.—(Hear,
hear.) The question was raised before the Lord Chief
Justice of the Court of Queen's Bench ; he had previously
ruled that the oath ought not to be put. Other Judges had
held a different opinion, and pressed by their authority he had
permitted the administration of the oath, but at the same time
reserved the question for consideration with his brethren. The
Judges met and considered the questions submitted to them.
The first question raised was whether the oath was lawful. On
that question four of the Judges of the Court of Queen's
Bench and one Baron of the Exchequer, five out of the eleven,
were decidedly of opinion that the oath was unlawful.
six were of opinion that the oath had been properly admini-
stered, and one other Judge, who was absent from the consul-
tation, was understood to agree with them in opinion. An-
other question was, whether it was proper to direct the Jury
to apply the test ? There were ten to two in favour of
the test. If it stood thus alone, and he could show the
House that ' a difference in opinion existed amongst the
Judges, on such an important question as the mode in
which they should appeal to the consciences of a
Jury, he thought he should be enabled to call upon them to
pass some legislative enactment to remove all doubt upon the
subject. But it was not a difference of sto7oroflo to 2 ;
the practical result had been that the two Judges who differed
in opinion from their brethren still retained their own
opinions, and declared that they felt bound by the
solemn obligations under which they were acting to state
the law on both subjects according to their own opinions,
and against the opinions of the majority, and to act in accord-
ance with the opinion of the law. Such had been the case in
1837, but what was it at present? Two of the Judges belonging
to the majority had since been replaced by two holding opinions
in accordance with thole of the minority ; so that on the question
of the administration of the oath the minority had been converted
into a majority of 7 to 5, while on the other quest ion the
minority had been increased to 4, and at that moment one
third of the Judges of Ireland felt that they were bound by
the solemn sanction of their oath, to administer the law as
they believed right, in opposition to the opinion of their
brethren. Now, how was this question to be determined ?
were they to have the question renewed, the Judges again
to be called together, and to wait until those discus.ions
should be renewed ?—( Hear, hear.) It was a state of
things calling loudly fur legislative interference ;
The Legislature was called upon to settle the question, and
remove the doubt altogether. If such a difference of opinion
had taken place upon the smallest question relating to pro-
perty, upon an individual right of the smallest possible value,
the Legislature would be bound to interfere. It was the business
of Parliament to review the laws, to see where they were defective,
and to take care that they were rendered clear and unambiguous.
Was it not, therefore, essential that they should in some r. ay
remove the doubts that at present existed in those parts of the
law. There were two projects now before the House, and be-
tween them the House must choose. He would assume that
some alteration must be made, and would now address himself
to the main features of the measures before the House. The
Noble Lord opposite said his Bill was a Bill for registration
merely ; now, if ever that was so, he considered it a sufficient
ground for the House not to enter into its consideration, as it
only aggravated and exasperated the evil, because its very
vital pnnci, le and essence was to give an appeal against the
the franchise to the Judge, to settle a question —of what? Not
to settle a question between parties, according to the law as it
was known and acknowledged, but to give them an opportunity
of adding further question, and making the doubtful law more
doubtful.—( Hear, hear.) Now, what was the consequence
of such a state of thfigs? He would suppose that an
Assistant Barrister had admitted five hundred votes—or
rather, he would suppose that he had rejected them.
There was an appeal to the Judge. and he, acting
according to his interpretation of the law of beneficial interest,
placed those 500 voters on the register. An election then took
place ; an intervening registry afterwards occurred, and the
same voters were objected to as being improperly left on the
registry, and the Revising Barrister left them on the registry.
Now he would suppose another Judge had gone that circuit
holding different opinions to the previous one—what would be
the result ? Why probably those very electors would be re-
moved by the Judge holding different opinions. Such would
be the effect of the provisions of the Noble Lord's Bill, and he
would leave it for the House to say whether that was a remedy
for the evil or an aggravation of it.—( Hear, hear.) He would
mention another illustration which was given in the course of
the discussion in the last year by his Right Honourable
Friend the Secretary at War, with reference to the appeal
in Dublin. In Dublin the appeal was to any one of
the , Judges who sat at Nisi Prius : he would suppose
the Lord Chief Baron entertaining one opinion in ac-
cordance with the minority of the Judges, and the Lo.:11
Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, holding another opinion
in accordance with tip, majority of the Judge.. Now, was it
not plain in such a case, that if the party appealed, he must
succeed, because he had only to choose the Judge before whom
he would go ? Was it not indispensable, therefore, that in some
way or other, the question should be settled that was tried in
1835, 1838, and 1840, and it was then found that, upon the
mere definition of the words of the Reform Bill, the difficulty
could not be removed. He would appeal to every reasonable
man, whether, adopting the plan to remedy these evils—whether '
it was not necessary to consider what would be the qualitieS
that were required as a test, and whether that test should
not prevail in the whole Island. Such was the case in the Poor-
law ; there the test pervaded the whole Island. The next
thing to consider would be, whether they could obtain a test
that would comprise every species of property ; and with refer-
ence to that he thought, with very few exceptions, that the
Poor-law test would be applicable to every species of proper.),
that would give the franchise. It was not necessary that the
test should be uniform over the whole Island, it was quite
sufficient that it should be uniform in large districts ; but
then it was said that there must be some check to fraud ;
he thought that check was given under the system of the Poor-
laws. Now what was the case with reference to the Poor-law ?
Why, before it was tried, so satisfied was Parliament of its
adequacy as a proper test, that they adopted it for the purpose
of establishing the municipal franchise.—( Hear, hear.) Had
any other mode been suggested by which this difficulty could
be got over, or had any other mode been suggested by which
they could get a better test? He had heard of none in that
debate or in former discussions, and he owned that it appeared
to him if they were to retire from that experiment, without
fairly trying it, the case might be looked to as utterly hopeless.
But then it was said that the valuation was not uniform ;

that argument was to stand good, and if it was to be
urged that the tested valuation must be uniform—
that they must abandon all notion of obtaining
any test whatever, because to suppose that they could obtain
an uniformity of value was utterly out of the question. If
they were to take rating as a test at all by which the fran-
chise was to be made stable, it was impossible to suppose that
in some parts there would be a difference to what took place in
other. It was enough to be certain that they could never ex-
ceed the real value of the property, because, if the rating
was too high, the party had an opportunity of appealing against
the rate. It appeared, therefore, to him that the
great and essential quality which was required, in
the first place, was that the basis of the test should
be ascertained before the parties went to the
conflict in the registry; and next that there should be a
uniformity of that test as near as possible. The question of
the amount of the franchise was one that would require great
consideration film the House, but that was a more tit subject
for the Committee than the second reading. The exact
amount of the franchise was not now the question, and if he
was asked why 51. had been taken as the test, he would refer
to the statements of his Noble Friend who introduced the
Bills. He begged the House to recollect that they were not
nowdealing with a recent question—they were not now deal-
ing with men that for the first time came forward to claim
that which was the subject of doubt—but they were dealing
with a mass of men who had acquired the franchise, and who
had enjoyed it for eight years. In the present Bill the
rights of all parties were defined, which was not the
case under the provisions of the Reform Bill.—(Hear, hear.)
He had incontestible witnesses to prove that in 1832, when the
the Barristers went about administering the law, they ap.
plied it in the manner in which the people now understood it
—(Hear, hear.) He would just call the attention of the
House to the state of things which existed prior to and under
the Reform Act. The Act of 1829 required that all the 101.
freeholders of Ireland then created should be registered under
that Act. By a return which was made to the House of
Comm/11s in May, 1431, it appeared that there were then
registered 20,109 voters. It was said that the freehold
qualification was not intended to be altered by the Reform
Bill. Now what was the operation of that law ? In 1832
the 101. franchise was registered under the Reform Act.
What was the number of freeholders registered under that
Act? If the law were the same—if it was administered in the
same manner—ought that franchise to have been enlarged?
should it have been considerably increased? Why, he found
that, in the summer of 1831, the freehold constituency of the
counties was 20,000 ; in the autumn of 1832 there were regis-
tered under the Reform Act 37,732, making an addition to
the freehold constituency of 17,000. He mentioned that sim-
plyte andndf
co
udr
ptohtneh
ipwtu
what principle
seep
roriftn,s4chwi
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igt A hew:.
aws
wasathe
eßai esdtf
meo
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eArcetildwoo ruaekpeondi:,
m
the extended construction, and he proved the fact by
showing that the constituency, which according to the
allegation, was left unchanged, was nearly doubled under the
Reform Act.--(Hear, hear.) At this time the Noble Lord
was /Secretary for Ireland; and it was proved upon the evidence
that the Barristers were in constant communication with hint,
and that he gave them all the information which they required
upon the construction. An election soon afterwards took place,
and after that the attempt was made to introduce an opposite
construction. The Longford Committee, which was com-
posed chiefly of Members of the other side of the House, de-
termined in favour of the more extended Construction. Another
election took place in 18.35, and another in 1837. Upon these
three occasions men who had acquired the franchise also ex-
ercised it upon that construction, and until the last Session of
Parliament its propriety had never been called in question.
reference
entitled
t 0
00 these
understandintentions f
from
?
There was one point upon which he felt anxious that the House
should be set right. It was important to look at the inten-
tions of the framers of the measure in introducing it to Parlia-
What were the poop
discussion 1829, the effect of which was
that passage from a discu Irelandfa in
their language ? The Hon:
bfleletnao. bedrenthanedn_pprrooeoefedoefd
atobreelaidas
that the best course would
ment. Now what waisetohfe
e of the Noble Lord the Member for
man, was the language
Lancashire.—(Loudof
cheers from the Ministerial
fide 101. interest and no more. This, said the Hon. Gentic_North
tidal interest. But he had gone further,
very expression bene
by the ;cud and col_
he had said that it should not be tested
Benches.) The Noble Lord on that occasion had used the
vent tenantry. The argument was applied against those who