St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1886-05-22

in the last century. Indeed, when the uues-
tlon arises OF choosing site for the new
parliament house. perhaps 1t will be well
10 seek another position. The associations
connected with Grattan's parliament are in
many ways far from agreeable This is the
building which Swift described as
Not a bowshot from the college,
HAIR the world from sense and knowledge"
And which, when it was finally converted,
after the union, from parliament house
into national bank, produced the follow
ing contemptuous epigram:
If, as 1T is by some asserted,
Ihis house be to bank converted,
what most we want will then be there.
Instead OF what we best can SHARE
But the jbes INDUCED in against the Irish
parliament during the last century were
endless. From the shape of its dome it was
nicknamed the goose pic,,' and even after
the dome was destroyed by fire the name
stuck to 1t, and we learn from letter writ
ten in 1913 by correspondent of Wolf
Tone: II will certainly walk into some
OF your Dublin) parlors about No
vemDer. as / have a curiosity to
near what the geese are saying in the pie
about that time" 1t is no wonder that
this parliament was laughed at and de-
splsed. Until 1852 it was confessedly inn
potent Tor any purpose, good or evil. In
lfo2 1t obtained certain amount of power,
put Its equality with the London parIia-
ment was at the best only nominal, being
limited by the corruption which was inher-,
ent In Its constitution, and which steadily
increased until the union. OF the 800 mem
DerS OF the house of commons, 216 were
returned by boroughs and manors, and
these, with few exceptions, were the prop
erty OF noblemen and gentlemen, who
valued them simply for what they
were worth in money or places. In 1893
the price of an Irish borough was about
915, 900. a price which would be quite unin-
telligible did we not know that the possess
sion Of seat in the house represented a
certain annual value in places and pensions
While the parliament survived this enorm-
GUS corruption was not SO much remarked
there was, indeed, plenty of it in England
RS well as in Ireland. In the latter
country, however, the evil was intensified
by the fact that the monopoly of places,
pensions and seats in parliament was
enjoyed by the members of the Estab-
lshed .church--a portion, that is, of the
small Protestant minority of the whole
population of Ireland. When, at the
period OF the legislative union (the last
Li0OeAiS VI tilo pdTlldileuG IN COleg6
Green took place on Saturday, Oct, 3,
1900. the number of seats came to be re-
duced from 500 to 100, and the owners of
the sacrificed seats had to be compensated,
the sums given were so large that in con-
templating them, it has been sometimes
forgotten that, great as they were, they
represented only a small portion of the
values that had been for many years
recognized by periodic sale and purchase.
OF the eighty-four DISTINGUISHED boroughs,
the average compensation paid to the
borough mongers at the union was about
e15, 600. Lord Devonshire got ESQ, 600 for
seven seats. Lord Ely e45. 900 for six seats,
the price being apparently reduced when
quantity was taken. The Duke of Devon
shire, LORD Shannon and Abercorn each
made a good thing of it. In all more than
a million and quarter was given for the
eighty-four seats which had been dis
franchsed, and over and above this no less
than e3, 600, 900, with fifty or sixty new
peerages or steps in the peerage and jobs
of every sort, the value of which cannot be
easily calculated. represent the funeral ex-
benses of Grattan's parliament May the
new Irish parliament, if there is to be one.
be as unlike as possible in most particulars
to its il-conditioned predecessor.