The Sun.
London, England, 1841-02-23 00:00:00

Noble Lord contends that it is. What are the advent sgei
of a lease? It is thet a man has, for a twin of years, an
mdeveadent property of Lis own—a stake ever and above
all
.dernasids, of which no roan can deprive him, and from
relinch he is enabled to maintain himself and his family.
but a lease upon rack-rent—a lease will a nominal amount
of real caarged above that which a man can par—a lease
of that description confers on the tenant no independence
whatever. It lout keeps him in the clutches of his land-
lord. If the landlord choosers to act tyrannically, he will
grant him a lease of fourteen years, he will keep
him in a perpetual arrear of rent, and then bring-
ing hen, under the Noble Lord's Bill, to the hust-
ings, he may say, " Vote according to my dictation, or
else (Opposition cheers.) But the Noble Lord
says the great evil of Ireland is that the landlords hold
the leases. Why should they not? The Noble Lord
states that that one thirg causes the grand diminution of
the franchise for which he means to provide a remedy.
He says that if the landlords choose, whole districts may
remain unrepresented, and under the Noble Lord's Bill a
greater temptation is given by granting a lease of 51. How
stands the case ? A. does not choose to grant a lease
except to a solvent, a respectable,' and responsible
tenant. Therefore what am I to do? I will
enable 13. t i grant as many leases as he chooses.
And supposing all other objections to the Bill obviated,
this is one which I consider as insurmountable. Sir, I
am deeply sensible of the indulgence and kindness of the
House in listening to observations which I ant well aware
have been protracted to an unusual length of time.—
( Cheers.) I would willingly have spared your time and
patience if I could have done so, but I felt that in justice
to this great question I was not able to do so when arguing,
not against the particular details, but against the whole
frame and principle of the Bill, and calling upon the
House not to examine its details, but to reject the prin-
ciple on which they were founded.—(Cheers.) Sir, I
would impress upon the House how impossible it is, if the
House should sanction the principle of this Bill being in-
troduce.: into Ireland, to withhold the same extension to
England.—(Cheers.) The Hon. Member for Kilkenny,
who has now in succession given his services to all the
three portions of the empire, and consequently looks with
an impartial eye on all—(Laughter)—told the Noble
Lord that what was good for Ireland was good also for
England, and that what was good for England was also
good for Scotland. The Hon. Gentleman has now re-
presented Dundee, Middlesex, and Kilkenny, and he
will say " This franchise is to be granted to Ireland,
and is a most desirable franchise. lam most anxious the
people of England should also obtain it, and I shall call
upon you for Justice to England." Now, Sir, the
Noble Lord (Lord Morpeth) must look with some amuse-
ment at the way in which some of his more eager followers
fall into his successive lures.—(Cheers.) I ask the Noble
Lord, do you mean to give to the Si. householders in
towns in England and Scotland the right of voting?
The Noble Lord is bound to givp an answer to this
question, and I trust that he will give it in the course of
this debaee, that we may know, and that no party may be
deceived by the statement of the Noble Lord, what course
of legislation may be reasonably expected with respect to
England and Scotland. Sir, lam firmly persuaded that
the Noble Lord, although he may for a time succeed in
postponing or defeating the remedy of the great abuses of
the registration by tacking to it impossible measures—
although he may succeed in again unsettling the mind
of the whole constituency—(Cheers)—on the subject, not
of any minor alteration of detail, but on the subject of the
whole principleon which the Reform Bill was founded—
(Cheers)—although he may succeed, and possibly will to
a certain extent, in throwing all those elements of discord
into that political cauldron, the stirring of which was so
eloquently denounced by the Noble Lord, the author of
" A Letter to the Elee,ors of Stroud "—(Cheere)—ale
though the Noble Lord may succeed in unsettling every
thing that the Reform Bill has settled, I rely on the good
sense of the constituency of this empire to render it impos-
sible for the Noble Lord to pass this Bill even through one
branch of the Legislature. —( Cheers.) I entertain a
hope, an. ardent, I will not say an anxious, hope that even
this House will on this occasion reject the principle of the
Noble Lord's Bill on the present reading. lam confi-
dent that the great body of this House, whether the majo-
rity of this House, or otherwise, e ill be supported in their
opposition to this Bill by the cordial support of the people
of this empire without your doors—( Cheers)—but if I did
not entertain that hope—if 1 ft lt that I should be left in
the smallest conceivable minority on the occasion—if I
knew that I should be left to stand alone in opposition to
this Bill, so decided am I in my feeling and opinion as to
the dangerous circumstances that must result directly and
certainly from the introduction of the principle of this
Bill, that if I stood alone I would record my opposition to
its second reading. Sir, I therefore beg leave to move
that this Bill be read a second time this day six months.—
( The Noble Lord having thus concluded a speech of three
hours' duration, sat down amid loud cheers.)
Mr. C. WOOD said, lie was perfectly aware of the
disadvantage to which he subjected himself in rising after
the Noble Lord ; but at the same time he was anxious to
avail himself of the first opportunity of expressing his en-
tire concurrence in the course pursued by her Alajeety's
Government in the present Session_( Cheers)—and his
entire approval, he would not say of all the details, but of
the general principle of both branches of his Nubia
Friend's Bill.—( Cheers. ) He ( Mr. C. Wood) was the
more asxioue to say this, because it was his painful duty
last year to differ from the course pursued by the Govern-
ment, who, while they admitted th , abuses in th regie.
trvion system, had, as the Noble Lord (Lord Stantey)
reminded them. declined to bring forward any remedy, and
therefore he (Mr. C. Wood) could not refuse to join the
Noble Lord in considering the di t rile of a measure, the
principle of which had been sanctioned by the House.
( Hear, hear.) But this self-same consideration seemed to
him to render it impossible to join in tee opposition ti the
second reading of this Bill ; and after the speech of the
Noble Lord, he confessed he was left as much in
the dark as before it of the whole grounds on
which that opposition was founded. (Cheering. )
The Noble Lord hal not told the House that the remedy
proposed was not as stringent as his own. The Bill of
his Noble Friend put an exiieguisher upon every kind of
fraudulent voting inn Ireland. The moment the Bill came
into operation it would put an end to the system of certifi-
cates, and no man could vote who could not show bona
_fide title to the franchise. 'I here was the appeal both
ways, and he thought it important Bert the appeal was not
to the Judges, who ought to be kept apart from political
considerations. As far a; the system of registration went,
it appeared to him that the Bill provided all necessary
protection sgeinst fraud and fictitious votes. All the fraud
which the Bill of the Noble Lord (Stanley) last year
would provide against, was personation of voters or frau-
dulent certificates, and when it was shown that the
greatest evil was the uncertainty of the franchise, Hon.
Gentleman upon that (tee Liberal) site of the House
would not entertain the Bill, because it applied only to the
lesser, and not to the greater evil. He ( Mr. Wood) did
not concur in that objection. But mush lers could be
concur in the objection offered to the present Bi 1, be-
cause it applied a remedy to the greater evil as well as
ti the lesser; that argument was so monstrous that he
did not expect to have heard it from the Noble Lord.—
(Ht a-, hear.) The Noble Lord bad not denied the un-
eert inty as to defining the franchise, nor had he, in the
whole course of his address, suggested a remedy for the
state of things which he, as well as every other Hon.
Member, must deplore.—(Cheers.) lie (Mr. Wood)
admitted that this uncertainty was one which could hardly
arise in this country. But be asked was tie case mended
by that? The doubt did exist in Ireland, and in every
grade of society, from the peasant to the Judge upon the
Bench. The fact that the doubt existed, and that it
affected the whole franchise, could not be denied ; and it
was the duty of the House to do everything in its power to
remedy certain things. All hopes of defining the words in
the Reform Bill had clearly failed. Were they then to
go back to the solvent tenant test ?—( Hear, hear.) At
the time the Reform Bid passed, that test was abandoned,
and in the House of Lords the Duke of Richmond and
the Marquis of Lansdowne decla-ed that it was too strin-
gent and ought to be relaxed. It would be a breach of
faith with the people of Ireland to go back to that test.--
( Hear, hear.) If therefore it was impossible to define the
words, beneficial interest, so as to remove the present on.
certainty, or to return to the test which existed before the
Reform Bill, he (Mr. Wood) knew of no test safer than
the Poor-law rating.—(Cheers.) This was no Radical
suggestion ; it was first proposed by gentlemen on the other
side, the Members for Mallow and Monachan, who could
not be supposed to be influenced by party objects.
—( Hear, hear, bear.)—lle found a similar test
suggested by an Irish barrister of Conservative prin•
ciples when examined before a Committee. That gen.
Oman was the Registering Barrister in the county of
Longford, and was appointed to that office by the Noble
Lord opposite ( Stanley). Ile recommended that being
rated to the county cess should be taken as tho test, al-
though he did not think it a good test ; but he was of
opinion that the qualification ought to be tested only by a
rated value.—( Hear, hear.) With regard to the precise
amount of the rating, that was not now before the House.
In the Committee they might determine whether it should
be Si., 101., or 201.---(Cheers.) The Noble Lord
(Stanley) had insisted, and at great length, upon the ne-
cessity of retaining some profitable interest to be on the
rent; but it appeared from the statement of the valuators
that such a provision would tend, in a very great degree,
to diminish the Irish county constituency. Mr. Wallace,
the valuator of the Longford Union, stated, that although
the rating was below the rent one quarter or one-fifth—as,
indeed, was the case in England—where
_the rating was
never more than three-quarters the rent, yet, if a profit-
able interest of 101. above the rent were required, it would
disfranchise 126 out of 130 voters in that union; if 5/.
were fixed, it would disfranchise 83.—( Hear, hear.) If
that test, therefore, were adopted, it would destroy the
constituency in the Irish counties. But he did not wish
to denounce it, much less to destroy them.—( Hear, hear.)
He did not agree with the Noble Lord that it was:not a just
subject for comparison to show the proportions between the
constituencies in English and Irish counties, although he ad-
mitted that tire comparison might be pushed too far.
Under the present system there was no fair proportion be.
tweea the population and the constituencies anti the coun-
ties in Ireland. When the Noble Lord took the returns

as a fair representation of the amount of the Irish consti-
tuencies, he seemed to have forgotten that those returns
did not show the real state of the constituencies. For