The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1840-06-23 00:00:00

11111,
governmenaills had comprised. He complained of the strict-
ness required in the notice to be given by the claimant, as con-
trasted with the generality and laxity of the notice to be given
by the objector. He censured as needless and vexatious the
frequency of the proposed revisions. He inveighed still
more bitterly against the power vested in the assistant-bar-
rister of striking off such voters as should not keep their
cesses, rates, and taxes paid up. All this, he said, was con-
ceived in a spirit of confiscation and disfranchisement.
There was quite enough of strictness in the already existing
requisitions of the law, as prescribed by the Reform Act ;
but, when those strict requisitions had been complied with,
the voter was surely entitled, unless new circumstances
should arise destructive of his franchise, to retain it for the
eight years guaranteed by the law. He protested against
that sort of justice to Ireland which would extend to her
whatever was harsh, and deny to her whatever was liberal, in
the constitution of England or of Scotland. That was the
system of Mrs. Sneak in the farce, who made her husband
eat the drumsticks of the fowls, but allowed him no share of
the brown of the roast beef. He ended by proposing an
amendment retainining the franchise until the end of the
voter's existing term, except where new matter should have
occurred to invalidate it.
Lord STANLEY had hoped that the time at length was
come when these enactments were to be discussed seriatim
and in detail : he had not expected that when the first clause
alone was properly before the committee, the whole scope of
the bill was again to be made the subject of animadversion.
The details had been discussed ad nauseam, when the house
should have been occupied with the principle, and HOW the
principle was again debated when the house should be occu-
pied by the details; and all this on a clause verbatim et lite-
ratim the same with one introduced into a former bill by the
noble lord himself. The clause was called a wholesale dis-
franchisement of the Irish people. Why was •it more a
wholesale disfranchisement of the Irish people than the Eng-
lish reform act, requiring annual registration, was a whole-
sale disfranchisement of the English people ? The same
clause had been introduced into all the former bills, and no
man had ever thought of raising this cry. Nay, the bill
brought in by the Irish Solicitor-General this very ses ion,
and now pending, contained a section equivalent to this
" disfranchising" clause, a section invalidating the existing
certificates, and rendering the new registration the sole test
of the franchise. (The Irish Solicitor-General here nodded
assent.) Why, then, what became of all this clamour
about wholesale disfranchisement? But really this sub-
stitution of a general discussion for a discussion of the
details was a mere keeping of promise to the ear ; and
he called to the house not to let the government thus
shrink from their pledge. It was said that the bill exposed
the voter to harassing objections. An objection in England
might harass the voter, for in England the voter had to prove
his title afresh every year ; bnt in Ireland, under the present
bill, the voter was relieved from this obligation, and the bur-
den of proof was thrown upon the objector, All this should
have been argued on the ulterior clauses, but it better suited
the noble lord to club up all the objections against all the
clauses, in order to prejudice the house on this one. The
amendment proposed an exception in case of new matter ;
but in case of fraud, of perjury, of personation, the amend-
ment proposed no exception at all. In some 500 cases in the
county of cork the voters had sworn their values at £lO,
which very values, when a rate was to be made, those same
voters swore at a little more or less than £5. Yet these voters
must be left untouched, because there was no charge in the
circumstances of the franchise since the registration. The
doctrine that one successful trial should be conclusive of the
franchise for ever, would lead to a great increase in the
dangerous practice of intimidating witnesses. He apologized
to the house for having travelled into all these matters ; it
was a course into which he had been driven by the generalties
of the noble lord.
Mr. SHELL repeated that this clause was a disfranchising
one. It destroyed vested and continuing rights, while the
amendment proposed to affect the vote only where the right
whereon it was founded had ceased. Much was said of per-
jury, bribery, and other abuses ; but if the indignation were
sincere, why was the evil let alone in England, and all the
virtue reserved to assail the Irish ? If there had been such
an excess of undue influence in creating votes, how happened
it that the Irish constituencies were not larger? Tipperary,
with a population of 402,000, had a constituency of only be-
tween 3,000 and 4,000. Lord Stanley had quoted a letter
from the agent of a conservative club, relating to some indi-
vidual votes; and in contradiction of this letter, Mr. Sheil
read another from a correspondent of his own. He proceeded
to say, that small as was the constituency, it had proved too
large for the views of the Tories ; and he gave a sketch of the
hardship which, under this bill, would be endured by a voter,
harassed by his landlord with an appeal, amerced in costs,
and sent away penniless, as a warning to refractory tenants.
If the divisions which existed soon after the Reform Act be-
tween the Irish members and the Whigs had continued, this
bill would not have been pressed forward. The Spottiswoode
combination failed to dispossess the Irish members of their
seats, and now the attempt was renewed by this bill. He
then delivered an antithetical invective against Lord Stanley,
who, he said, was not fitted for the nice and delicate task of
legislating for Ireland. Ireland had been till now in a state
of general calm ; Lord Stanley was letting loose the elements
of a new agitation ; it was for the house to stop him at the
outset, or Sir R. Peel, who last year felt Ireland to be his
great difficulty, would have occasion to regret the policy of
his noble and formidable friend.
Mr. D'ISRAELI asked the members who call themselves
the representatives of the masses, how they could support a
Government which was kept in office by a party desirous of
overturning the state, and which administered its justice by
giving impunity in Ireland to offences which in England they
visited with punishment ? He must look on this occasion to
these considerations, and not solely to the specific clauses of
a registration bill. He had never given a vote hostile to the
Irish people ; he had not, like the Ministers, voted for a
coercion bill. He trusted the House would support the ori-
ginal clause.
Dr. STOCK opposed the clause, in a short and wholly in-
audible speech.
Mr. Serjeant JACKSON entered into the particulars of cer-
tain votes, to contradict Mr. Sheil's correspondent and to
show the frauds of the present registration. He was briefly
followed by Mr. BEAMISH. After him Lord POWERSCOURT,
referring to a former dispute about certain fictitious votes
alleged to have been fabricated in the county of Wicklow, said
a few words which were controverted by Mr. J. GRATTAN
and Mr. O'CONNELL. Mr. CALLAGHAN followed against
the clause, and Sir MONTAGUE CR APM AN entered into some
explanations about the conduct of Mr. Tighe, a revising bar-
rister, which were corrected by by Mr. LEFROY.
The SOLICITOR-GENERAL for Ireland said the question
was not upon any of the various classes of fictitious votes,
but whether the House should adopt this large clause, or
limit it by the proposed amendment. . When the Reform
Bill for Ireland passed, there existed about 20,000 of these
£lO voters. Were they obliged by that Reform Bill to
register again ? No ; they were left, as Government pro-
posed to leave them now, upon the register. They ought,
surely, to be some repose ; the holder of the franchise ought
to be perpetually disturbed. You ought not to have a
tribunal so unsatisfactory as to require the constant repetition
of investigation. You would not allow fresh appeals from
the courts of common law or equity, on the ground that fresh
evidence had been obtained since the former decision. The
present tribunal for the determination of the franchise had
been twice selected, first in 1829, and secondly in 1832 ; and
the Legislature ought to rely on its decisions, and leave them
final. Some of the present voters had been registered 11
years, and had polled at five elections; and now it was pro-
posed to deprive them of their vested right, and this upon
a question of value, on which there was always much
difference of opinion, and much temptation to the valuers
to strain their judgment. Was there not a danger that you
would destroy more good votes than bad ones?
Sir E. SUGDEN said he would propose nothing for Ireland
which he would not accept for England. He entered into a
parallel between the bills of Lord Stanley and of the Govern-
ment, and argued that, of the two, Lord Stanley's was the
more favourable to the voter. Gentlemen talked as if this
bill would enable objectors to disturb the voter without
cause. No such thing ; the cause must be proved.
Mr. MACADLEY said, the effect of the amendment would
not be to perpetuate the franchise, but only to continue it
for the term to which it would have endured without this
bill, a term of eight years from the date of the registration.
He regarded this as a bill to take away the right of voting,
under pretence of ascertaining it. As often as there should
be a new assistant-barrister or a new judge on the circuit,
the same objection might be repeated ; then an appeal to the
King's Bench : a fresh attempt next time before the barrister;
another before the circuit judge, and then an appeal to the
Common Pleas ; and so on, year after year. No such system
was allowed with respect to to the rights of property, and
though that might cause some instances of individual
hardship, yet the sufficient answer was, that there must
be an end to litigation. Some wrongful votes, no
doubt, would be displaced by the bill; but the bill was
as hard on the rightful as on, the wrongful claimant. Sup-
pose a man of great wealth and vindictive temper, giving
orders to his agent to object against, all persons obnoxious to
him, would it be too much to suppose that such a man might
become so far the master of an Irish county as to return
both its members to parliament ? His objections to this
bill were increased by the consideration that the franchise in
Ireland was a restricted one. There were more voters in the
county of Westmoreland than in Cork, the most populous
county of Ireland. If the Irish franchise were to be altered
at all, it should be rather by extension than by restriction.
This was the first step in a great retrograde movement. It
mattered little what might be the law of right if you could
contrive to vitiate the law of remedy. The present struggle
was as much for English as for Irish liberties. Or, if no
similar design were entertained against England, the injustice
was only so much the more glaring. That was not the spirit
in which Mr. Pitt effected the union, a settlement which he
himself would defend alike against the member for Dublin
and the noble lord.
The house divided. For the amendment, 296 ; Against it,
289. Majority for Ministers 7.
Lord STANLEY then stated, that after the decision to which
the house had come, he should offer no further opposition to
the amendment on the remainder of the clause
It having been admitted, *
again,
decision
andt o
declaredt
w committee
ichth that,
housepo owrhet
avpde rrocgmor
meuse;h:
Lord STANLEY moved, that h
e
ha ne dmaisgkh eraevger
et A!iste
he would
for Monday still persevere with the further progress of the bill
next.
Lord J. RUSSELL declared his opposition to the motion,
and would propose some other day instead of Monday.
Sir R. PEEL remonstrated against a postponement, as
contrary to the usage which allows the member having the
conduct of a bill to choose his own day, subject to the deci-
sion of the house on that day whether or not it shall then
proceed. And Lord Howick having expressed the same
opinion, Lord John gave way, and left it to be decided on
Monday whether Lord Stanley's bill or that of Mr. Pigo.t
should then come on for actual discussion.

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