The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1841-03-02 00:00:00

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believed th

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CONOLI

HOWARD (Comb

, on tt

Le definition of the f

f voters too
to benefit

andard of the v

rial wit

d they we

forth th

lotion of t

11 a rel

become i

a comparison betwee
ring Lord Morpeth's
Franchise.

gh not throe

h laws of c

aged irel

) little had the

cauldron of Irish c

don to

i you a

was it fittiq

3 exhibit

them as enemies of the people ? Your municipal bill was
another insult to Ireland, also understood by the people. He
denied that the 40s. freeholders had been disfranchised by
reason of their independence ; it was by reason of their reli-

ion, and by
naking their own term

lon that their enemies

I been cited to

d again arid again. Mr. O'Connell
nto his old comparison between the

then went agai
Irish and the I

;h proportions of constituency to po-
led that only five members bad been
bill to the representation of Ireland.

30. W of koperty ;

the boroughs under the reform bill your test was popula
He denied that this bill would extend the franchi
He would gladly give a vote to every man, and in (

too far

tab too, as well as in Ireland. He entered into the question
of the beneficial interest and solvent tenant tests, declaring
in favour of the former. ,But whichever way the balance
might incline, it was necessary now to determine the doubt.
He called on the house to grant the franchise demanded by
Ireland. America had been lost by the refusal of enfran-
chisement ; at the same time Ireland was retained by the
commencement of it. As the war of the French revolution
athranced, the allegiance of the Roman Catholics was pre-
served to England by the horror of the priests against the,
infidelity of France. He would caution England now against
the dangers of her armed peace, and of her discussions with
America. It actual war with either state had b

n, would

Lord Stanley presumelto bring in such a bill as his

11 people Were go

steadily on : they would never again
but they would keep their rights in

view. He attacked the character and temper of the inhabi-
tants of the north of Ireland, -accusing them of several outs
rages, of which he stated the particulars, and which he said
were all yet unpunished. He would never submit to the de-
gradation of having his country an inferior one. He would
persevere. If his just claims were refused, the refusal
would only increase his power.
Sir R. PEEL began by chastising the feelings with which
Mr. O'Connell had gloated over the old animosities between
England and Ireland. It was a libel on the Irish people to
say that they would not join England against a foreign ene-
my. He hoped that Messrs. Macaulay, Sheil, and Buller,
who had held the language of menace, were prepared to take
their course, when, in the next session, Mr. O'Connell
should make still further demands as the price of peace.
The real object of the present measure was to subvert the
old and substitute a new representation. He would not
suffer himself to be now diverted into a consideration of the

details of Lord Stanley's bill ; the introduction of which
was, however, the whole argument of the ministerialists, for
not one of them said a word in favour of the government
bill itself. He wished for a test which would exclude the
present difficulties ; but he would not agree to continue a
system of approved abuses till a new test could be agreed on.
Ministers had no right to tack to the remedy .a condition which
must defeat it. By that condition the country franchise was
thrown open to persons possessing not an atom of property.
It was a fraud on the compact made at the time of the Reform
Bill—a compact which, on the ground of its continuing obli-
gation, Lord John Russell himself had, so lately as 1837, re-
fused to disturb. It was a fraud on the arrangement for Ro-
man Catholic emancipation, whereof one of the conditions
was, the county voters should if

possinte, be rendered an
independent body. Without that condition, the Relief Bill
undoubtedly would not have been suffered to pass. When
Lord Morpeth refused to Mr. O'Connell the permission even
to introduce his enlargement of the Irish franchise, it was on
the twofold ground of the Reform Bill and the Relief Bill.
On the other hand he himself should regret to see any dimi-
nution of the constituency below the intent of the Reform
Act. This new leasehold contrivance would be wholly de-
feated, should there be a reluctance either of landlords to
grant, or of tenants to take, these leases. The 40s. franchise
had been abolished, not by the wishes of the government,
which passed the Relief Bill, but by a testimony of the Roman
Catholic witnesses before a committee of the Lords in 1825.
Mr. O'Connell's evidence at that time was, that the abolition
of the 40s. franchise would be a positive benefit to Ireland.
The persons who really abolished that franchise were Mr.
O'Connell and Mr. Slum, by the proofs they adduced of
the miseries consequent upon it ; and were we now to be told
that they were insulting Ireland and refusing to restore these
miseries? He then read passages from the evidence of Mr.
D. Brown, to show the frudulent system on which the Irish
landlords concocted these small votes ; and he explained how
the now proposed franchise would be liable to all the same
perversions, to political jobbing, and to the subdivision of
land. If this franchise were granted to Ireland, how could
the noble lord deny it to England and Scotland? If you
had found opposed to you a party base enough to take up the