The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1841-04-30 00:00:00

conservative portion of the house

The reply of Lord Morpeth was more feeble than any-
thing wisich I have ever listened to from that noble lord.
Almost entirely void of argument, and wholly wanting in
dignity, it was in fact little more than an appeal ad misere-
cordiam addressed to his refractory supporter. His lord-
ship's manner and features, at the best of times not a little
ridiculous, were, on this occasion, positively ludicrous ; and

when in an appealing tone he enlarged upon the sacrifices
which he and his brother ministers had been willing to make
for the purpose of securing for a little while

longer the sweets

of office—when he reminded the house that " certainly they
had done their best to demonstrate that thav were not dis-
posed to stand upon extreme opinions," and that even since
the recess they had " not hesitated to raise the franchise in
a slight degree," in the hope of conciliating their wavering
supporters, and averting the dreaded doom with which they
were menaced, the house was almtist' convulsed with
mingled laughter and disgust.
Lord Morpeth was followed by Mr. C. Wood, the member
for Halifax—(Lord Howiek's " double," as he has been very

appropriately termed)—who in the course of a somewhat able
speech, demonstrated a fact which perhaps may not a little

I such

giants

astonish some of your Clayton-square '
distinguished individuals ever listen to two sides of any

question. The alteration of the proposed amount of rating
from £5 to £B, will, in operation, be an effectual and an ex-
tensive measure of disfranchisement of the existing body of
electors. Yes, a whig measure,—Lord Morpeth's own pet
bantling—contains that very " disfranchising principle," the
alleged existence of which, in Lord Stanley's bill, was made
the ground of a yell of execration directed against that noble-
man, as " the enemy of the liberties and the franchises of
the Irish people "—as " Scorpion Stanley " ! In the returns
brought before the house by government, and prepared by
their poor-law officials, Mr. Wood " found that in fouiteen
unions the number of £lO voters was stated, and the number

under £8 ; and it appeared that out of the £lO voters in
these fourteen unions nearly one-sixth would be disfran-
chised by the proposition of Lord Morpeth." Perhaps the
discovery of this circumstance, only within the last day or
two—owing to the protracted production of the returns from
which it has transpired—may account for the evident want of
fervour with which it was supported during the debate by the
arch-agitator and his party. Lord Morpeth has evidently—
to use a vulgar phrase—" put his foot in it."

After a few words from Sir C. Grey, Lord Stanley pre-
sented himself at the table, and in thatdignified and straight-
forward manner which distinguishes him, laid before the
house the course which the conservative party had determined

to pursue upon the question before it.
After a few words, uttered in a very low tone, by' the evi-
dently chopfallen member- for Dublin, Lord John Russell
indulged himself in one of those petulant and delamatory
harangues which,(as was well remarked by Sir Robert Peel)
he is in the habit of addressing to the democratic portion of
the house, " when he has some very defective cause to ad-