The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1840-05-12 00:00:00

measure.

In the first place, O'Connell and the ministry are
aware that the proposed bill is in honest hands, has
been drawn up for an honest purpose, and is calculated
to effect the object which it professes to have in view.
On these very grounds it was denounced by the agi-
tator himself before its introduction, and when no
knowledge could exist of any of those details, the al-
leged oppressive and harassing nature of which have
called forth so much vituperation. Lord Stanley, as
the faction well knew, is thoroughly acquainted with
the working of the present system, its gross fraud and
reckless perjuries; and hence arises the soreness with
which they regard his lordship personally, and their
reluctance to entrust to his hands the construction of
a measure to reform it. Under the watchful care of
his lordship, they will not be able to smuggle into
such a bill provisions fatal to its principle and inju-
rious to its working; they will not be able to make
the correction worse than the original evil.
The main ground of the opposition to Lord Stan-
ley's bill is the honesty which it bears on the face of it.
A further ground, however, is the absence of a clause
contained in the bill of 1835, by which the franchise
established by the Reform Bill was-sought to be tam-
pered with. The measure brought in by Mr. Sergeant
O'Loghlen contained a declaratory clause, explaining
the beneficial interest necessary to create a vote, in
direct contradiction to the law as laid down by the
judges. By that clause a beneficial interest of ten
pounds a-year was to be ascertained by the claimant
swearing that his mud hovel, shop, or other tenement,
was worth to him ten pounds a-year more than he paid
for it; whereas the legal construction of the Reform
Bill requires that such an interest, in order to consti-
tute a qualification, should he a bona fide value of ten
pounds a-year more than the rent, estimated by the
amount which a solvent tenant would give for it. That
a bill containing such a clause—which, in fact, would
establish in Ireland something very nearly approaching
to universal suffrage--would be eagerly accepted by
government, we need not doubt; and the recollection
that such a clause was contained in the bill of 1835,
and forms no part of Lord Stanley's bill, furnishes
sufficient explanation of the virulence with which the
latter is attacked.

Since the measure by which this fraudulent attemp
was made to reduce the franchise in Ireland has been
shelved, the ministry and their mendicant taskmaster
have discovered that the same result can be achieved,
and the creation of fictitious votes facilitated, without
an express enactment, by the discreet selection of re-
vising barristers from amongst the members of their
own faction ; and hence arises the sudden affection for
the present system. From the report of the Fictitious
Votes Committee for Ireland, which has been recently
published, we find that one of these gentlemen, Mr.
Gibson, has registered, without scruple, every claimant
whose elaStie conscience would allow him to swear that
his holding was worth to him ten pounds per annum,
and expressly refused to allow objecting parties to in-
spect the lease upon which the claim was founded, al-
though the power of doing so is provided by the Re-
form Bill itself. Mr. Gibson's construction of the
beneficial interest required to constitute the right of
voting is in the teeth of a decision of the judicial
bench, which circumstance may account fdr the disin-
clination manifested towards that tribunal as a court
of appeal from the decision of any revising barrister
who may not be so pliant in his principles, and so
accommodating
,in the construction which he puts
upon an act of parliament, as this same Mr. Gibson.
The naked fact then is this. The ministry of Lord
Melbourne would have permitted the principle of Lord
Stanley's bill to be introduced into the Irish system of
registration, accompanied with a clause to reduce the
qualification established by the Reform Bill, and make
the increase of the numbers of Whig voters coextensive
with the increase of perjury ! But they will not sup-
port a measure.which effects what they themselves only
IlrVasendoudgoaie * wil-i tho e
effect. But have they the honesty
to l.ie true nature of their objection ?
They have not. On the contrary, it is studiously con-
cealed, and the declaratory clause itself is not even at-
tempted to be defended or its principle advocated.
On what grounds then is the measure of Lord Stanley
denounced, except on the ground that it is introduced
by a party who is hostile to the policy of the present
government ? Oh, the details of the measure are an-
noying ! The forth of notice is perplexing ! We
grant that the details are very annoying to those who
wish to!perpetrate a fraud upon the constitution, by
claiming a privilege which they have no legal right to
enjoy. The form of notice, • too; may be a little per-
, plexing.7 It will, we dare say, be a little puzzling to a
man who, has no real qualification to describe the
"whereabouts" of that mysterious thing; for a man
with no lease at all to describe it, and harder still to

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