The Sun.
London, England, 1841-02-03 00:00:00

he hoped en that occasion to he able to show the House
and his Noble Friend, that in perfect consistency with even
thing that had been done and said before' on that branch of
the subject—that it would not be expedient to effect any
material alteration in the present system of registration,
such as the Neble Lord would recommend, nor anything
involving the constitution of a new appellate jurisdiction,
withoutrfirst explaining and defining the franchise. Guard.
ing himself upon these two points, he should offer no fur-
ther opposition to the motion of the Noble Lord, while be
reserved to himself and his celleagues the right of future
action upon all the future stages of the Bill.—(Haar.)
Mr. O'CONNELL considered himself by no means
bound by any compromise between the Noble Lords on
both sides of the House.—( Hear, hear.) Ho did not h.
the least stand there belonging to any party on the ques-
tion—he stood there on behalf of the people of Ireland.—
( Ironical cheers.) The House and the country might
naturally feel somewhat surprised at the fact, if it were
not too manifest, that the Noble Lord, in a prepared speech
made with great deliberation, and making. out the
strongest case for himself, and in order, as he said, to
put an end to the multiplication of fictitious votes in Ire-
land (for that was his object), had omitted to giv(
the House some idea of what the number of
these fraudulent voters was.—( Hear, hear, hear.) fir
did not take up the statistics of Iceland, and say here are
190,000 inhabitants with 25, or 10, or four thousand voters,
constituting an overwhelming number of voters claiming the
franchise in proportion to the aggregate number of the
people. That would be a fair way of investigating the
question. Why did he not take Cork, and sat here are
713,000 inhabitants, and tell the House how many voter,
were registered in the county ? Why, there were bg
3,800 voters on the register, and the wnesst of them tho
could vote were 3,600. Why had he not called upon th.
House to remedy that ? It was overwhelming, it was over-
powering, there must be fraud, there must be
" villainous perjury," for that was the phrase of last Ses-
sion.—( Loud cries of " Oh, oh," from the Tory benches.)
Perhaps the Noble Lord did not say it, but somebody seiri
it for him.—( Oh, oh, and laughter.) What was meant
by those interruptions ?—( Hess, hear.) He had " beastly
bellowings" last year, perhaps they would be renewed in
the present Session. He was showing the country and the
House what it was that called for the vigilance of the
Noble Lord. Cork had a population of 713,000, and the
rural population of Wales was 710,000 ; the latter had
30,090 voters, while Cork, with the greater number of in-
habitants, had not more than 3 800; yet that was the
system that required to be watched over. The Irish, it
appeared, bad too many votes. Let them contrast it with
the English representation, and then tell him if that were
equal justice. The sole thought of the Noble Lord by
day and his dream by night when he was in office,
ended in the miserable abortion by which he had
swindled the people of Ireland out of their votes by the
kind of franchise he gave them. He was the author—it
etas he that brought in the Bill. He was required
give the people of Ireland the Engiish mode of registry,
and that was what he gave them, and it bad even worked
badly, because the franchise had trot been di fined. He
(Mr. O'Connell) would not allow that Bill to come be-
fore that House without exposing its hollowness and
mockery, and the paucity of voters in Ireland as compared
with that of England. By the returns that had been
laid upon the table of the House, it appeared that in the
registration of 1832 the number of voters in Ireland was
not 5 per cent of the male adult population,. while '
in England it was full 20 per cent., and when they bad the
returns of the last registry from Ireland, it would be found
there was a diminution of full 20 per cent., and a gentle-
man who was well acquainted with the subject had in-
formed him that it would be nearer 30 per cent. The
Noble Lord's measure was a mockery, and was far mere
distinguished for cunning than for fairness. Notice had
been given by the Government for a Bill to amend the
registration of voters, which would have been introduced
on the previous night but for the accident of there being
no House ; and although notice had been given for the
4th inst., the Noble Lord had some respecteb:e gentleman
lurching for him, and took care to anticipate that motion.
Why not give the Government art opportunity of bringing
forward its measure, which might have answered the pur-
pose ? Oh, no, the Noble Lord had his pocket pistol--
the Ulster Constitutional Association, who little knew
the total want of candour with which they were to be
met. He thought it highly improper to have that motion
brought forward in such a manner, and that the House
was entitled to have that Government measure b. fore it,
previously to the Noble Lord asking for leave to bring in
his Bill. If he were disposed to feel any sorrow at the
teultitudineue attendance of that night, or to congratulate
tire Noble Lord cn the enthusiasm of his followers.—
( Loud Opposition cheers.) He was glad he had pro-
voked that shout, for it would show the people
of Ireland, how little they had to
,gxpect from that House.
—( Ironical cheer s.) Whatever became of them they
roust rely upon themselves and their own exerions, and
every act and exhibition of enmity to that people, and
every attempt to lessen their fienchise was a new argu-
ment to those who thought that the connection between
the two countries was not on a basis of justice or one
which ought to be permanent.—(Cheers from the Irish
Members.) He thought the House should pause, although
he leered it would not, and not allow allow the Bill to be
brought in before the measure of the Govern-
ment was on the table. Protesting ainst the
vexation of the Noble. Lord's Bill—demanding from
the House, if there were any bond of union,
that they should have the br re fit of it, and without going
into the details of the measure, he must enter his protest
against a plan which gave them the worst part of the
English system of registration. If they meant to have
the people of both countries, and of Ireland especially, to
consider the Union as binding, they must give them Eng-
lish rights and liberties. —( Cheers.) Let theirs not give
the people of Ireland the Noble Lord's vexatious registra-
tion. Why had not the Noble Lord brought in a Bull for
England when the system was so much complained of ?
He objected not to amended registration, but to the object
of the Noble Lord, which was to aim a blow at the liber-
ties of Ireland ; and being determined to meet him foot to
foot, he should now move that the debate be adjourned till
after the 4th instant.
Mr. HUME seconded the motion.

Mr. S. O'BRIEN said there was nothing in the state-
ment of the Noble Lord that surprised him. The Noble
Lord bad last year stated that he had no palitical or party
views whatever in bringing forward the measure, and
yet be bad taken the very first opportunity, without
waiting to sec what the measure of the Government was,
and bad evinced his determination to 'mike the ques-
tion a regular party struggle. Although the Government
had at the very earliest period announced its intention to
bring forward the subject, the Noble Lord had, by a
piece of jockeyship not in very good taste, taken advan-
tage of that motion to interpose his own in the first in-
stance. He did not think the Noble Lord had dealt
fairly with the document which had been issued by the
Ulster Association, and he doubted very much whether it
was his real intention to make that Report the basis of
his Bill. He wished to point out to the Government
the expediency and wisdom of extending the provisions
of the measure which the y w. Te about to intioduce for the
amendment of the Act for the Registration of Voters in
England, to Ireland, as it would do away with much of
the jealousy and discontent that existed on the
other side of the Chaotic I.—( Hear, hear.) He
threw these remarks out fu the co,siderati,in of the
Government as the resu:t of considerable reflection. With
regard to the definition of the franchise it seemed to him
that they were chtermined to regard the def. eta of the
Reform Bill as sacred.—( Hear, hear.) Ne Hen. Mem-
bers of the opposite side had thrown out any suggestion
with respect to the qu,litication. The lion. Member
was then understood to state his views upon thisi subject,

and to say he thought it should be based upon the rating
under the Poor-law Act, but from the great noise which
prevailed in the House during the whole of his speech,
they wore alt.)gether inaudible in the gallery. He re-
=emended his Hon. Friend the Member for Dublin,
nut to press his motion, as he thought under exisCng cir-
cumstances it would be unavailing to do so.
Lord JOHN RUSSELL said he confessed his objec-
tion to the measure which the Noble Lord had sought-to
introduce last Session, was but little diminished by the
statement which the Noble Lord had made of the.present
measure, which seemed to him, with the exception of
some particulars, to be, in its main features, the same
Bill, and calculated to produce the same calamitous cir-
cumstances which it had appeared to him would have been
the result of the enactment into a law of the Bill of last
year.--( Cheers.) lb must own, candidly, that the
Noble Lord had stated his case very fairly; yet it was
certainly :ornev,hat singular on the part of the Noble
Lord, that while there were many abuses of all

kinds in the registration system, in the mode of
voting, and in the practice of elsctions in Eng-
land, Scotland, and Ireland—that while all these
existed in England and Scothnd, and that while
those in Scotland the Noble Lord had dwelt upon, yet all
these he had passed by, and it was the abuses in the re-
gistration system of Ireland which called for the Noble
Lord's especial attention, and made hint anxious, the first
moment of the session, to provide a remedy for, leaving all
the others in full vigour without attempting either to
remedy or palliate them.—( Cheers.) He must say
likewise that although there were many abuses in
the registration system of Ireland, that although he could
not deny the statements made as well on the one side as
the other, yet he did view with considerable jealousy and
cl,rm a measure for reforming these abuses, which we;
sought to be enacted entirely with a view to the restriction
of the franchise.—(Cheers.) This was the spirit of the
Bill of 1829, brought in for the concession of the Catholic
claims, and which was a stringent measure of disqualifies_
Lion.—(Cheers.) It was also the spirit of the Bill of
1832; and the Noble Lord again considered this measure
with a view to remedy abuses which might have arisen,
and to granting franchises which might be necessary, but
not of. altering the restrictions of the Bill of 1832.
(Cries of " Hear, hear.") After these two measures
the Noble Lord proposed a measure on the mode
of restriction, and to narrow the franchiset granted to the
people of Ireland some fifty years ago, so as to disfranchise
the people of Ireland. It might be quite right to introduce
a Bill on the subject, but it behoved the House to look
most narrowly to the provisions of such a Bill, and to see
clearly what would be the efiset of all its provisions taken
together.—( Hear, hear.) He remembered his Noble
Friend the late Lord Durham, in discussing some restric-
tions on the 101 franchise in England, which he thought
too numerous and too apt to be vexatious, said, " You may
say every man who is a 101. householder shall have a vote,
but sou may add that he shall also be able to construe
the first book of Homer," intimating that the fran-
chise might, in fact, be confined to a few per.
sons, althought it might seem to be a large and
extended franchise.—( Hear, hear, hear.) The Noble
Lord proposed to continue the franchise as it ex,.
islet!, by proposing thet the franchises should be fran-
chises defined by the Courts of Law, whose uniform
course, as he had already observed (without imps ing to
the Judges any political bias, but only the tendency of all
the authorities of the Courts of Law), was generally to
restrict, by technical distinctions and definitions, the fran-
chises which existed, tither by common law or statute.—
( Hear, hear.) It was thus that the largest words in our
charters, " our communities," " burgesses of towns,"
" community' of our said town of Bath," and so forth, had
been in the course of time restricted to some twelve