The Sun.
London, England, 1850-03-02 00:00:00

te tning ni

LONDON, SATURDAY, MARCH 2, 1850.

The Obstructives succeeded in wasting the whole
of last night in the most frivolous and vexatious oppo
sition to the Irish Parliamentary Voters Bill. At
nearly twelve o'clock, after the proposal of amend-
ment upon amendment, having manifestly no object
beyond embarrassment and delay, the first clause, as
amended, was ordered to stand part of the Bill.
After a most. uninteresting debate of several hours,
the Right Hon. the Chief Secretary for Ireland was
unable to make further progress with his very mode-
rate and reasonable Bill than the, first clause, so that,
at the aame rate of progression, we may expect to
see the Bill carried about the commencement of the
grouse shooting season. A more dull and spiritless
debate it has seldom been our unpleasant duty to
wade through. A regular Parliamentary opposition
is associated in our mind with sparkling
wit and brilliant eloquence—our memory takes us
back to the time when PITT, and FOX, and CANNING
were wont to startle the possessors of the Treasury
Benches, and make the old halls of St. Stephen ring
with thrilling bursts of bright and convincing elo-
quence. But, alas, what a falling off is here ! The
Opposition harangues of last night had nothing to
redeem their leaden tediousness, they more resembled
the puerile efforts of schoolboy declamation without
its; freshness, than the strong and embodied reasoning
of full grown men. The first clause of the
Bill provides that occupiers of lands rated
at 8/. or upwards, and being registered
under this Act, shall be entitled to vote at elections
far counties. Now one would suppose this was plainly
an extension of the franchise to certain persons occu-
pying land rated at 8/. a year, and at present excluded,
the lowest qualification being under the Reform Bill
101. in counties. Yet it was seriously and solemnly
contended by some of the wiseacres in the Opposition,
and even, to our amazement, by ono eminent member
of the legal profession, who should have known
better, that the qualifying and simple words
of this clause would have a diF qualifying
effect, and in the words of Sir FREDERICK
THESIGER; " would unquestionably sweep away
all existing franchises for the purpose of recon-
structing the representative system of Ireland." Hoses()
acute and able a lawyer as Sir FREDERICK undoubtedly
is, could so misunderstand the plain words of an Act
of Parliament, we are at a loss to comprehend. The
clause confers the franchise on all persons rated at 81.
and upwurds; these last words manifestly including
all persons rated from 81. to 50/., from tha lowest
to the highest qualification, and disfraneltisity, none.
one of the Honourable and
this,
Notwithstanding
Learned Menth:rs fur the University 'of Dublin pro-
posed that the words be inserted—" in addition to
those qualified by law, to register and vote for any
election of Knight of the Shire in Ireland." After a
most lengthened and tedious dcbate it was consented
to add this unnecessary and unmeaning surplusage to
the Bal. Mr. HENLEY proposed the next amend-
ment, " that the words two years' occupation as
tenant or owner should be inserted." An amend-
ment whielb, if carried, would produce endless liti-
gation, involving in every case the intricate question
of legal tenancy and ownership, and calci4ated to
produce so much vexatious delay as to deter a large
number from claiming the franchise, no matter how

justly they may be entitled to it. We are, however,
glad to say this psuedo amendment was negatived by
a majority of 64, the numbers being 166 to 102. Mr.
HENLET then proposed a second amendment, which
Even his own party did not attempt to press,
and which was negatived without a division. Then
came the most important amendment, and which
clearly manifested the intentions of the Obstructives.
The Hon. and Learned Member for Dublin Univer-
sity proposed that, "instead of an 81. rating it should be
a 151. rating." This proposition clearly evinced the
animus of the opposition, and removed altogether the
flimsy veil by which they would conceal their real
object, which was evidently to refuse any extension of
the franchise to the people of Ireland.

The Honourable Member the LORD MAYOR of
Dublin ably combated this disfranchising clause, by
which the Irish franchise would be narrowed instead
of extended, and thus the whole object of the
Bill defeated. Mr. REYNOLDS, with his usual ability
and clearness, gave a most minute and instructive
statistical detail of the Irish franchise, demonstrating
the monstrous injustice of raising the qualification to
a 151. rating, as proposed, and after a long and tire-
some debate, which lasted till nearly midnight, the
amendment was negatived by a majority of 69, and
the further consideration of the measure was adjourned
to Monday next, when the British Reformers of the
House of Commons will, we trust, be at their post,
and, by aiding in extending the franchise of the peo-
ple of Ireland, prepare the way for an extension of
their own, and show by an overwhelming majority
that the democratic principles of the Constitution
must be carried out in reality, as they form in theory
and spirit one of its boasted and essential elements.

Government has already, within the present session,
acknowledged the necessity of adopting some more
comprehensive policy in regard to the management of
our colonial possessions. Of all the orations yet de-
livered, during 1850, in the British Houses of Parlia-
ment, unquestionably the most bold and statesmanlike
was that pronounced on the eighth of February by
the Prime Minister of England. In it he unfolded
the scheme proffered by the Cabinet for the accept-
ance of the Legislature—a scheme intended to effect

the better conduct of the affairs of Australia. Never,
we areready to own, has a project of this character been
submitted to the consideration of the popular repre-
sentatives by any previous Minister of the Crown, the
principles of which throughout were more consonant
with the genius of our Constitution. Applied pro-
portionably to the different dependencies of the em-
pire, its influence could not fail to operate most bene-
ficially both on the mother country and on our nu-
merous possessions. It would effect the moral and
political amalgamation of their interests even though
physically they might remain divided from each other
by the distance of the earth's diameter.

Half-an-hour's reflection will be sufficient
to convince even the least credulous of the enormous
responsibility devolving upon the Government of the
British empire in reference to the direction of the
British Colonial Administration.
When it is remembered that out of that one-fourth

of the surface of the globe which consists of dry land,
almost one-fourth of that again has become subjected
to the force of Anglo-Saxon domination, it will be
sufficiently apparent that the number of human
beings requiring the aid of our legislation
is more enormous than that obedient to any
other terrestrial authority. For, excepting:the central
portion of the North American continent, all the rest
of the countries populated by the children of our
firefithers still continue to offer allegiance to that

august sceptre which has descended from the hands of
ALFRED to those of VICTORIA.. A rapid enumeration
of the colonial possessions scattered through both
hemispheres, and looking to the counsels of West-
minster for their guidance, will enable us to obtain at
a glance some adequate conception of the magni-
tude of the task entrusted to the ability of our Ad-
ministrators.

Europe, besides comprising the fountain-head of
the_ great race of the Anglo-Saxons, the source from
which all this enterprise has emanated, contains also
some of those small yet inestimable dependencies
which are in reality among the most important of
cur possessions. Conspicuous among these are the
lonian Islands, commanding the whole of the Mgean
Sea ; Gozzo and Malta commanding the centre, and
Gibraltar commanding the entrance of the noblest of
all the inland seas, the Mediterranean. Northward,
again, is the store-house and observatory of England
during the periods of European warfare, the island of
Heligoland.

Asia embraces the vast and fruitful dependency of

Hindostan, stretching from Cape Comorin to the
Himalayabi, forming the southern limits of Thibet,
irrigated by the waters of the Indus, the Ganges, and
the Burampoater. Within the presidencies alone of
Bengal, Madras, and Bombay, are comprised an
extent of 553,000 square miles, and a population of
83,000,000. Among the provinces obedient to the
rule of the VICEROY at Calcutta, are, of course,
Cachar, Jynteab, Aracan, Martaban,
Tavoy, Ye, Murgui, and others, together
with the states of Berar, Oude, Mysore,
Travancore, Cochin, Sattarah, Rajpootanah, Bundle-
cund, Sinde, the Punjaub, and other subordinate por-
tions of the gigantic territory of Hindostan. Beyond
these, amidst our numerous Asiatic possessions, must
be enumerated the island of Ceylon, the Laoradire
Islands, the Maldive Islands, the Audaman Islands,
Hong-Kong in China, Aden in Arabia, and Labuan
and Sarawak in Borneo.

Africa, besides containing the spacious colony at
_ _

the Cape of Good Hope, stretching northwards be-
yond the Orange River, must be viewed as associated
with our dependencies of Sierra Lone, the River
Gambia, Liberia, Cape Coast Castle, and Fernando
Po, with Ascension Island, St. Helena, the Mauri-
tius, Rodriguez, and the Scychelle blends.

America, apart from the United States, is popu-
lated by many millions attached to the Anglo- Saxon
institutions, and directly subservient to the British
Government throughout the Hudson's Bay terri-
tories, the two Canadas, Newfoundland, Queen
Charlotte's Island, Vancouver's Island, the Ber-
mudas, the Bahamas, Honduras, Jamaica, Trinidad,
Barbadoes, Dominica, Antigua, and the remainder of
our West Indian possessions.

Apart from the four great continents, England
possesses in the Southern Ocean a gigantic island,
partaking in magnitude rather of the character of a
continent; and, in addition to Australia, the insular
dependencies of New Zealand, Auckland Island,
Campbell Island, Macquaries Island, Van Diemen's
Land, Desolation Island, St. Paul's, Amsterdam,
Gough's Island, Sandwich Land, the New Orkneys,
Georgia, Faulkland Island, South Shetland, Chatham
Island, Palmer's Land, Enderby's Land, Adelie Land,
South Victoria, and other possessions scattered over
both the great oceans, and extending in either direc-
tion to the extremest limits of the Arctic and Antarctic
regions.

Dominions thus spreading over the surface of the
habitable and even uninhabitable globe own the sway
of that wonderful empire which has Westminster for
the seat of its central Government. Upon the lead-
ing members of that Government reposes the awful
and ever-increasing responsibility of so legis-
lating for the management of those immense
and widely separated colonies that the
whole framework of the
B
should be preserved in harmony—andritthisaht
observed, during an age which has been desi • gnated
by one of its greatest thinkers, an age of universal
downfal and disruption. Such a labour of conserva-
tion and development is altogether incompatible with
the maintenance of the existing policy. This the
ruling Administration recognizes. This Lord Jowl
RUSSELL himself has almost in so many words
avowed. The initial measure in a grand move-
ment of amelioration has, we believe, been
commenced by the introduction of the
Bill
for the Government of the Australian
Colonies, a Bill submitted to the House of Commons
by the Prime Minister on the Bth of February. Let
ui hope that a change so auspiciously commenced
may not be unlial pily impeded in its progress through
the L gislature, but that in this instance the good
Intentions of ti.e Government may be realised through
the earnest co-operation of the Parliament.

Tu.srss or M. B. DISRAELI, M.P.—The illness
from which Mr. Disraeli is suffering is not of a serious
or alarming character, it being merely an attack of in-
fluenza, which does not demand any further medical care
than that of his ordinary professional attendant. 41. great
number of the honourable gentleman's political friends
called personally at his residence, at Rutland gate, in
the course of yesterday, and the swer given was that
" Mr. Disraeli is much the same."