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CHAP. V.

Bill for the Disfranchisement of the Forty Shilling Freeholders in Ireland-Mr. O'Connell claims to sit under the new Act-He refuses to take the Oath of Supremacy, and is heard at the Bar-The House resolves, that he must take the Oath of Supremacy, and orders a new Writ for the County of Clare-The Marquis of Blandford moves Resolutions in favour of Parliamentary Reform.

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THE bill, which admitted Catholics to the Houses of Parliament, and to all offices of political power and trust, had been accompanied, throughout its whole progress, by another bill for disfranchising the whole body of fortyshilling freeholders in Ireland, and raising the qualification of an elector to 10l. The object in view in this regulation was, to free elections from that absolute control which late experience had shewn could always be exercised over them by the influence of the Catholic clergy on these miserable Catholic voters. In the alarm, which that control had excited, is to be found one main cause of emancipation having been made a government question. Irish members began to tremble for their seats; the right of voting seemed to have been transferred to the priesthood and the Association; to mount the hustings, and refuse to pledge yourself to support the Catholic Question, was to ensure defeat in your election. Mr. Dawson, brother-in-law of Mr. Peel, was the first who sounded in Ireland the note of approaching concession; and members themselves could not but see, that unless some remedy were applied, they would have no power, however strong their

interest might be, in the Irish elections. The remedy which they sought, lay in diminishing the number, and increasing the respectability of the voters. The fortyshilling freeholders had been manufactured by the landlords themselves, for no other purpose than to create votes which should be at their absolute disposal. The instrument was a powerful one; but it had now passed into abler and more energetic hands; it was wielded against themselves by a power, to which, from its nature, they could oppose no successful resistance. They could not regain possession of the instrument: it was resolved, therefore, to destroy it. Ministers, however, believed that it would be ungracious to attempt, and impossible successfully to carry through, so important a change, as the depriving a great portion of the population of the highest political right which the constitution bestows, without giving a great political boon in return. They admitted, that to raise the qualification would be an efficient remedy, and that Parliament was competent to apply that remedy; but they would not ask Parliament to apply it, without providing a substitute, in the form of unlimited emancipation, for the political privilege which was to be abolished. The two measures were to support each other. To one party it was to be said, emancipation is the only condition on which we will agree to disfranchise; and to the other, disfranchisement is the only condition on which we will agree to emancipate. Mr. Peel accordingly opened the intended measure, as part of the general plan which government had formed for the renovation of Ireland, in the same speech with which he introduced the Relief bill. A bill, he reminded the House, had been agreed to in 1825, which disfranchised all the forty-shilling freeholders, although it had failed in consequence of the failure of another measure with which it was connected; and since that time, most important events had occurred bearing on the same question. In 1825, the friends of Ireland had been convinced that the franchise stood upon grounds, and was exercised in a manner, which were open to the greatest objections. It was urged as an objection to the then and present low state of the qualification, that it admitted of too indiscriminate an addition to the voters that it increased the natural disposition of Ireland, or rather of Irish land holders, to divide their land into minute portions-that, in point of fact, the franchise was a mere instrument with which the landed aristocracy exercised power and control over the elections-that the freeholders were made for that purpose-that they were totally different in character from the freeholders of this country, and were considered in no other light than as a means by which landlords-and the landlords in Ireland were chiefly Protestants-exercised

influence in the elections of the country. Since then it has been made matter of complaint, that the influence of the landlord has been paralyzed, and that that of the priests has stepped in, and diverted and taken from the landlord that influence and authority which he exercised over the electors, "I will ask, whether the influence, which has superseded that of the landlord, is less objectionable than that which was found to be in 1825. It is in vain for any man, who looks to what has taken place in Louth, in Monaghan, and Clare, to deny the fact of that influence being now in the hands of the priesthood." Looking at the other circumstances of the country, the very number of the voters proved that they were not the fruit of any natural constitutional growth. In the year 1820, there were polled at contested elections in the county of Bedford, 4,000 voters; in Berkshire, 2,270; Devonshire, 6,298; Durham, about 3,800; Glamorganshire, 1,284; Middlesex, 10,000; Sussex, 5,500; and Westmoreland, about 4,370. In many of the Irish counties there were polled from 10,000 to 18,000. Never was such a concurrent body of testimony brought to bear upon one point, as was given before the committees of both Houses in 1825, respecting the evils arising from the state of the franchise in Ireland, by every man who was examined, Catholic or Protestant, layman or ecclesiastic. The general opinion of the witnesses so examined had been in favour of raising the franchise to 20l.; but so great a rise he would consider too violent an alteration, and was inclined to be satisfied with 10l., as affording a reasonable presumption that the character of

the voters would be raised. It would be necessary to determine upon some specific mode of ascertaining who were 10l. freeholders -some tangible mode of ascertaining the real character of the freehold. For this purpose it was proposed, that, after the passing of the bill, a day should be fixed in every county in Ireland, for the purpose of opening a bona fide registration of 10l. freeholds. At present the right to vote did not accrue until twelve months after the date of the registry. This seemed to be an unnecessary restriction of the individual right, and it should in future accrue in six months instead of twelve. On the assistant barrister was to devolve the duty of registering these freeholds, and of making every inquiry which the nature of the application might appear to him to require. The exercise of this power was to be checked in two ways. If the right to vote was denied, the party should have the benefit of an appeal to the next assizes, and of a decision by jury, upon the right which he sought to establish. It should be always open to the freeholder to produce fresh evidence. Leases for life, and the tenant-laws of Ireland, were to remain unaltered; all that was to be done was, to raise this nominal forty-shilling freehold to a real 101. franchise. Neither was this restriction to be extended to corporate towns; that would not be quite fair, while the right of the corporations to make freemen was left undiminished. Were the freehold franchise within their jurisdiction raised to 10l., a corporation could overpower the public voice by the exercise of their right to make freemen.

The bill founded on these principles went on pari passu with the Relief bill, and encountered far less opposition. From the opponents of emancipation it met with none; for the placing of the elections beyond the control of the clergy was a measure which they themselves had desired. The whigs, properly so called (for there was now at once a splitting and a coalescing of parties, which almost deprived words of their power to discriminate and describe) supported it, hostile as it was to popular rights, and destructive of vested political franchises, as an essential part of a whole, the other, and what they thought, the better part of which they were unwilling to lose. Mr. Brougham said, he consented to it,

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as the price-the almost extravagant price-of the inestimable good which would result from the other; and sir James Mackintosh described it as one of those tough morsels which he had scarcely been able to swallow. It did not pass, however, altogether unresisted-Lord Duncannon, lord Palmerston, Mr. Huskisson and some others opposed it, as a measure not called for by any necessity, and not fitted to gain that object which alone was held out as justifying it. It was said that it was absurd to allege, as a pretext for it, the influence and conduct of the Catholic priesthood; for all, who knew any thing of that influence, knew that it was chiefly felt when it ran with the current of popular feeling, and that it was ever exercised with a view to maintain submission to the laws. If the forty-shilling freeholders had been corrupt, like those of Penryn, their disfranchisement might be defended; but the only offence of the persons, against whom the bill was directed, had been, that they exercised their privilege honestly and independently, according to the dictates of their consciences. The Relief bill was a great good, demanded equally by justice and expediency; yet it was plain enough that, but for the independent exercise of their privilege, by the forty-shilling freeholders of Louth, Waterford, and Clare, that great good would never have been heard of-expediency and justice would have called in vain. Yet they were to be punished for effecting that, which the very men, who proposed the punishment, declared to be a great public blessing. If landlords in Ireland had been too prone to subdivide their estates, with the view of obtaining political influence (a statement which, it was alleged, was not borne out by facts), that was an evil which might safely be left to cure itself. The subdivision of property in Ireland depended mainly on the state of society in that country; and any sudden attempt at consolidation in a country, where there were no manufactures to afford employment to the superabundant population, could be productive only of extensive misery. In Ireland, the population of which was seven millions, there were only thirty towns which contained more than five thousand inhabitants; whilst in Scotland, whose population was but two millions, there were thirtythree towns containing more than five thousand inhabitants. It was in vain to endeavour, by arbitrary enactments, to anticipate the progress of society. Neither would the bill effect its object. They knew little of Ireland, who thought that the mere raising of the registry to 10l. would do away with fraudulent and fictitious votes. If the

bill were passed, and a 10l. yeomanry established, could they be compared with the substantial yeomanry of England? It would soon be discovered that the 10l. yeomanry were of too low a denomination, and that it was necessary to raise the qualification to 20l.: and indeed it would be difficult to know at what point to stop. The House had been told, indeed, in language which could not be misunderstood, that on the success of this measure depended the success of the Relief bill; but it was denied that Parliament had made any such bargain with the government. In the speech from the throne, Parliament had been told that the price required for Catholic emancipation was the immediate and summary suppression of the Catholic Association. That was the only bargain which Parliament had made with government; and, the price demanded having been paid, it was impossible, in the event of the bill before the House being defeated, for government to turn round and refuse to fulfil its part of the bargain. It was absurd to suppose that government could withhold emancipation. Neither this government, nor any that might succeed it, could do so. What had induced the present government to advocate emancipation ? State necessity, and that necessity had not been weakened during the last three weeks. Such a compromise was the less justifiable, as the object said to be in view could be equally well secured in another way. That object was to get bona fide voters. Now what objection could there be to a bona fide forty-shilling freehold, or what difficulty in obtaining it? They could as easily regulate the forty-shilling franchise, so as to render it a bona fide one, as they

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could the 10l. freeholds. Turned to such a purpose, such an act would do a great deal of good. The machinery of the present bill, brought to bear on the forty-shilling freeholders, would do away with fraudulent voters and that was all that, ostensibly at least, was sought after. At all events, however, the bill ought to have been only prospective; by disfranchising the present freeholders, you inflict an injustice, which was only a degree short of depriving these men of their freeholds, that is, of their property. Was this the mode of proceeding, even where acknowledged abuses had occurred? And whence this distinction, so unfavourable to Ireland? Was it either the duty or the practice of Parliament to dispossess persons of their rights and take away the property itself, before endeavouring to correct the abuse. Was there no instance of such abusesin England? Hon. members might recollect the election in Middlesex some twenty years ago, and the scenes which had then taken place; when a mill at Brentford had been split into a hundred votes. Who had ever thought at that time of meddling with the elective franchise of the people of England? let gentlemen call to mind the elections of Westminster some forty or fifty years ago the perjuries, and corruptions, and bribery, and breaches of the peace; yet who thought of interfering with the franchise of the people of England? It had been objected that the votes in Ireland were not derived from property in fee; and how many members were there in that House whose property was not in fee? Many electors held only a life-interest in their property; and in many places, Sussex, for

example, votes were created by the purchase of 40s. worth of landtax, which was not purchased for the profitable employment of capital, but solely with a view of obtaining the elective franchise. How could the House resolve to dispossess persons of their property, especially when the abuse, which was to be considered the ground of the measure, existed elsewhere?

Vested rights of another description were regarded; there was scarcely a professional adviser of the Revenue board, who did not consider his emoluments as vested rights. Perjury at elections no doubt, ought to be remedied. But when honourable members talked of perjury in Ireland, why had they not some feeling for the perjuries committed in corporations? The fortyshilling freeholders of Ireland might be entitled to a lenient considera tion. Some of these individuals might not understand the true construction of the law. They might suppose, that, if they were unwilling to part with their freeholds for 40s., they were, therefore, worth so much in the eye of the law; whereas, in corporations and borough elections in England, a man would swear that he had not received a bribe, whilst he knew that it was promised, if not received, and that it would be regularly paid when the period of danger had expired. The bill, in short, might be very advisable-the fixing 10l. as the lowest point of the franchise might have been very proper-if Ireland were a new country, to which a qualification was to be extended for the first time; but in its present character, abolishing freehold franchises which had so long existed, it was a partial, unnecessary and un

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