The Sun.
London, England, 1841-04-29 00:00:00

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MORNING EDITION.

stituency that would be formed under the proposed fran-
chise, reductions must be made for persons possessing two
or three or more holdings, fLr tenements rated above the
value, for tenements held by minors, and for tenements
held by joint tenants. The gentlemen appointed by Go-
vernmeat to report on the subject had stated that it was
impossible to ascertain the number of persons rated
above 5/. who acre possessed of such leases as would en-
title them to the franchise ; and he thought he was fully
borne out in assuming that not more than one-half would
be entitled to it upon the Government proposition. This
would give cne person in every 84 of the population of
Ireland a vote ; and according to the returns laid before
that House in 1832, ooe person in every 24 possessed the
franchise in England.. He disapproved of giving the
landlords the power of regulating the franchise by
granting or withholding leases at pleasure; it was
most uneons.itutional, and, looking to the growing
indisposition of Irish landlords to grant leases, a rapid di-
minution of the constituency must be the inevitable con-
sequence. The only argument he bad beard against the
amendment was, that under its provisions coercion would
be carried to a greater extent than at present ; but the
experience of England and Scotland went to show that
leaseholders were as much exposed to intimidation from
their landlords as tenants-at-will, while the experience of
Ireland proved that such was the indomitable spirit of pa-
triotism in that country, that voters would not be restricted
from an how. st and independent exercise of the franchise
by fear; and he challenged the Attorney-General for Ire-
land no show that the ten-int-at-will in the rural districts
attached to the towns were one whit less independent in
the exercise of the fr,alchise than the leaseholders of
counties.

Mr. O'CALLAGHAN supported the amendment; ho
we.; convinced that the time vat.; approaching when the
possession of the franchise in Ireland must be based upon
something oilLrent from the possession of a lease. He
was astonished at the arguments of the Attorney-General
for Ireland. There were upwards of 5,000 voters in the
several districts attached to Cork, and he could stato from
experience that th,;re were no men more independent than
the tenants from scar to year. They were not to be inti-
midated. The leaseholder was much more in the land-
lord's power, as be might refuse to renew the lease when
it expired, but the tenant from year to 3elr as he was not
so exposed to loss from his landlord's displeasure, was con-
sequently m( independent.

Sir U. J. NOR fiE YS would prefer giving the fran-
chise to a yearly occupation at a higher rating than to a
leasehold occupation at a lower one.
Mr. HUM E meant merely to try the principle of lease,
or no lease, by th!s amendment. The amount of rating
would be matt:r for after-consideration, be had no objec-
tion to a 51. rakes. The Noble Lord, the Member for
Northumberland, having declined to press the principle, he
was determined to bring it forward.
Mr. WARD considered they were merely fishing for a
franchise. The Noble Lord (Howick), in proposing the
occupation franchise the other evening, had never told
them what emount of occupation he intended to propose;
and, as regarded that subject, all authorities seemed op-
posed to each other. Now, what was a Member, who
knew nothing of the subject, to do, but to support that
Bill, which, as had been justly observed by the Hon.
Gentleman opposite, the Government had brought for-
ward on their own responsibility, and which there
was some possibil;ty of carrying, if it could obtain
anything like a united support.—(Loud laughter from
the Opposition benches)—but if every Member brought
f,rward his own promi,ion for fixing the franchise, while
the Opposition acted steadily together against suffering
the franchise to he touched, the result must be that the
Bill would be 105 t..-.( Loud OppositiOn cheers.) It was
was very well for Hon. Gentlemen opposite to cheer, but
they should r,collect that there was as little probability of
their being able to carry their own measure for paring
down and crippling the -franchise.—( Cheers.) So that
the only result of these discussions would be a great waste
of time.

Mr. HUME did not like the lecture of his lion. Friend.
—(Cueors from the Conservatives. ) It was all very well
to say they daaul i act together, when they knew what to
do. He knew no more of what were the intentions of the
Government than did the man in the moon._( Cheers and
laughter.) No one knew what they were, and he did not
believe the Government knew themselves.—( Cheers from
the Opposition benches.) One day they brought
down a most admirable Bill, and another day down
came the Noble Lord and proposed most material
alterations in it, and thus they went on changing every
three or boar trays. Ile had intended to support the
clause of the Noble Lord the Member for Northumber-
land, and had asked him if he intended to press it—find-
ing he did not intend to do so, he (Mr. Hume) had deter-
mined to bring forward the present amendment. Was it
to be borne that they should say to the people of Ireland,
you have everything to entitle you to the franchise, but if
your landlord refuses you a lease there is no help for you,
and you shall not hove it. If the Noble Secretary for
Ireland had intended to devise a mode for throwing the
whole county representation of Ireland into the hands of
the landowners he could not have hit upon any expedient
more effectual than rendering the possession of n lease ne-
cessary to the acquisition of the franchise. The people
of Ireland had been badly treated. They seemed to think
that hishmen were beasts and might be trampled on. It
wos an insult to them to legislate tor them in such a man-
ner. Let them do as fie Hon. and Learned Member for
Dublin had so frequently entreated them to do—make the
Union a reality, by putting Irishmen upon the same foot-
ing as Englishmen, and they would soon find that Ireland
would be contented and happy.

LUCAS said the .ifon. Gentleman who had just
sat down hid made it a charge against Members on that
side of the house, that they did not act consistently with
regard to this measure. He (Mr. Lucas) contended that
there was nothing intelligible either to support or to op-
pose.—( Hear, 'ear.) If the Floe. , Gentleman would
show him eomething tangible upon which to ground his
oppo.,ition, it should not be, wanting; but be coefessed he
was quite at a loss in the present state of the matter.
Lord JOHN RUSSELL said, the lion. Gentleman
who had just sat down, and who wanted something tangi-
ble to support or to oppose, was least year one of those who
urged that it was necessary, in order to place the fran-
chise of Ireland upon a sure foundation, and to prevent
eternal disputes hi the registration, that they should have a
fixed and definite franchise—more fixed and more definite
than under the existing law.—( Hear, hear.) Dating the
present Session the Hon. Gentleman had contended that
it would be most unwise to attempt .to fix the fran-
chise in any way whatever, and that the true course
to pursue in a plan for the registration of voters was to
leave entirely out of the question the definition of the fran-
chise.—( Hear, hear.) Whatever differences there might
be on that side of the House, it would not be very diffi-
cult to show that they did not differ niece than the Hon.
Gentleman had differed from himself.—( Hear, hear, hear.)
With regard to these particular words of the clause, he
certainly thought it would be better to take the clause as
a whole, and to discuss it upon its general merits, and he
intended for the present to reserve his opinion as to its ef-
fect. But as a good deal of discussion had arisen upon it,
he would state what were the difficulties which any Go..
verninent or any individual Member would have to expect
in dealing with the question, and in the next place, what
were the various advantages of the various propositions
which had been made. First, then, there was an ima
mense difference in the way in which the term 401. free-
hold was to he understood as applicable to the two coun-
tries. The freehold tenure of this country had been laid
down in various books as comprising a tenure not less
than a tenure for life; a tenure for a term of years was
not considered a freehold tenure. Though the definition
was the same, the class of persons and the interests et-
fected were very different. Amongst the 40s. freeholders ill
England they would find small farmers, artizans, and men in
small country towns end villages exercising the trades of
tailors, shoemakers, and various other occupations, who
were entirely independent of a landlord. They would also
find persons in the situation of day-labourers, some of them
on the verge of asking for relief from the parish, yet ma-
king a struggle to preserve their small freehold of 40a.
This was a class of persons, on the whole exceedingly .in-
dependent, earning their livelihood by honest and indus-
trious mean!, not immediately connected with landlords.
They were very much diffused through the country, and
as it had often been held in the family for a long period.
were very proud of this small freehold inheritance. . A
freeholderhire,tnld h
oLthitshaetlathsse
iwnhhbernrita hn
oce had
hadmbeteevinitihn ihnisDfaemvoinly-
ssince the time of William the
Conqueror. It was, on the
whole, a very independent class of voters, and the franchise
was of a nature easily established. In Ireland there was
only a small number of persons who had freeholds in inhe-
ritance. When the Right Hon. Baronet (Sir R. Peel)
proposed in 1829 to disfranchise tbe.4os. freeholders, and
it was asked that the freehelds in fee simple should be ex-
empted from that disfranchisement, it was stated in the first
place that it was not advisable to make any distinction ;
and in the next place, that there were but a small number
of persons—in some counties not more than the or six—.
who came under that description, and who would be saved
by such an exemption. The property in Ireland was for-
merly held for a long term of years, and that was not con-
sidered in law as a freehold tenure. The 40s. freeholders
did not at all correspond with the same class of voters in
England. They were not that numerous, generally dif-
fused, and independent class of persons who had held this
small freehold from generation to generation, to which Ito
had alluded as forming that class of voters in England.
Generally spcakieg, the freehold was a freehold for life,
and he believed very commonly during the time of the 40s,
freeholds they were hid for the lives of very old persons,
and often could not be reckoned as of more than seven
years donation. It was obvious that a tenure of that kind was
very different from the tenure which existed in this conntry.
But then they should also take into account the great differentia
which existed between the state of society in England and in
Ireland. The 501. tenants-at-will were generally persons
agreeing in political opinions with their landlords; there was
at least no great difference of feeling, ior of interest between
them: Although the landlord mighOer might not attempt
to coerce the vote of the tenant, there was no great difference
in either case. The state of society was one of harmony and
agreement, rarely interrupted except en great political occa-
sions, and as that of the Reform Act. In. Ireland it was im-
possible not to be struck with the great diversity of feeling
which prevailed between the great class of great proprietors
and the class of tenants who, under the tenure he had de-
scribed, hail been intrusted with the franchise. They had the
one party highly attached to an aristocratical constitution, very
eager to uphold the Protestant Establishment of the Church,
conceiving that the ancient institutions of the country must be
preserved, as that which for them and their fathers has pro-
vided general security, and secured the succession to the Crown
in a Protestant tamely. They had the class of
persons below them—a very great mass of them at
least, on the other hand deeply attached to the
Roman Catholic religion, holding that they and their
e.
fathers had been injured and insulted by predominance and by
exclusion, and seeking in the exercise of their political rights,
as far as possible, to do what they would consider as equalizing
the balance, and to obtain for themselves and the class to which
they. belong a very large, and, as they think, a just share of
political power. lie was not stating that the one party or the,
other were wrong in these views, or giving any opinion on Ow
subject ; but he was stating it for the purpose of showing that,;
entertaining such different feelings, imbued with so different a,
spirit, going to different ministers of religion, and looking to IC
political contest and to the representation of that House as the
means of embodying their sentiments, it was impossible but
that the body of proprietors and the body of tenants should
held different opinions, and wish to exercise the frenchise in a.