The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1840-05-22 00:00:00

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amount of the franchise be diminished, and the vote would
be of less value, and the temptation to perjury less. The
noble lord who had introduced this bill had had somebody's
luck beside his own. (Cries of " Name, name." The learn-
ed member, however, did not take that liberty with his
friend.)
Sir ROBERT PEEL said be would enter into none of the
details, the discussion whereof. had been desultory and use-
less. He would inquire only into that material question,
whether the house, having great abuses proved before it,
should make an attempt to cure them—not to carry the par-
ticular clauses of. this bill, but to apply some remedy to a
clear" evil. He trusted to the right feeling of those who had
before absented themselves from the resistance against the
second reading, and to the honourable example set by Lord
Howick and Mr. Wood, in despite of their own preposses-
sions. Lord Stanley had been most unjustly assailed : his
principle was to aid the legitimate franchise, and discourage
unjust objections. Where was the danger of the committee ?
The majority of the house had ample power to prevent any
undue restriction, even if any such had been contemplated.
In 1835, so convinced had Mr. O'Connell been of the fitness
of the main principles embodied in this bill, that he had sup-
ported in this house both the annual revision and the ap-
peal both ways. Yet now these very proposals were evi-
dence of national antipathy and religious bigotry ! If par-
ticular clauses were objectionable, let them be altered in
committee: but let not the abuses of the registration. be
perpetuated by a total rejection of the subject matter.
The ministers promised a bill of their own ; but they had
promised it in most equivalent terms, and not at all until
they had been defeated on the second reading of this measure.
Then it was that Mr. O'Connell had expressed his gratitude
to Lord John Russell, not for having advanced a salutary
amendment, but. for having furnished the English members
with an muse to vote against the further progress of the
bill now in debate. This bill was.censured for containing no
clause to define the franchise ; yet Lord John admitted that
his own bill was to contain no such .definition. But when
was Lord John's bill to pass the House of Lords ? The So-
licitor-General had said it would pass when the present
bigoted race of peers should have been succeeded by their
more liberal heirs, now sitting in the House of Commous.
A long time to wait; and what, meanwhile, was to become
of the abuses of Irish registration ? . Seven years the minis-
ters had talked of a remedy ; and if this bill were rejected,
seven more would elapse before that remedy would be com-
pleted. All the arguments about the proportions of voters
in England and in Ireland were here irrelevant. If the fran-
chise ought to be lowered, let a bill be introduced to lower
it ; but that subject,should not be mixed with the question of
fair or unfair registration: It was not true kindness or con-
ciliation to Ireland to let the bond fide voter be overborne by
false claims of franchise. When fictitious voters were sus-
pected in Scotland, adverse to your party interests, when
corporations were attacked which it would profit you to abo-
lish,•you were eager for reforin ; do not now oppose the re-
dress of proved abuse and corruption, because you find it
would be unpalatable to your own supporters.
Lord MORPETR likened Sir Robert Peel to Ulyssesconming
in Aid of Ajax. His next illustration was a whirlpool, from
the vortex whereof he did not himself escape without a woful
draggling. His third allusion was to the painter who com-
bined in his picture the charms of all the beauties of Rhodes ;
and his fourth, to a fowler catching small birds with chaff.
These displays' of imagination seemed to the house a little
inapplicable, but the noble lord corrected their impatience by
telling them, that if they would not hear him they should
have another adjournment. He admitted that it would have
been desirable to produce, somewhat earlier, the bill prepared
by the Irish Solicitor-General ; but he said it was actually
drawn, and had been held back only in hopes of making it
more perfect. As to the present measure, he had the satis-
faction to feel convinced, that even if it should go into com-
mittee, it must be eventually defeated. For the present, at
least, that satisfaction was postponed, inasmuch as, on a di-
vision, the conservatives carried their motion by a majority
of 301 against 298, striking dismay into the ministers, and
despair into the " Tail."
The house then went into committee; but the chairman
was immediately ordered to report progress and to ask leave
to sit again on Friday pro formd, when Lord Stanley will fix
a day on which the proceedings in committee will really com-
mence.--The house then adjourned at a quarter-past two
o'clock.