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the voters would be raised. 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 107. 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 10., 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, "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

In 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. 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 go

vernment, 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

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 abuses in 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 consideration. 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

justifiable attack upon the rights of property.

To this it was answered, that, beyond all doubt, the Irish fortyshilling franchise had not been beneficial to its possessor, and had been most detrimental to the country in which it was exercised. From it had sprung the splitting of the lands into small farms, the excessive increase of the population, the general squalor and wretchedness of the country. At no time since 1793 had these freeholders been their own masters. From 1793 till 1825, they had regularly been driven by their landlords, at elections, to the county town, and locked up, till they gave their votes for his candidate. Since 1825 they had been equally the creatures of the priests against the landlords. The former had proved the more powerful interest; and it was an interest against which, knowing as we now did what it could effect, it was both fair and necessary to provide an adequate security. Neither was there any real hardship imposed. We were about to give the Roman Catholic a great compensation; he was now under a stigma of exclusion and humiliation; we were about to say to him, we will place you upright in your free and natural position; and, in return for a concession such as this, we were entitled to demand his ready acquiescence in a measure like the present. In acting thus, we did not consent to place the present measure on the ground of a penalty directed against the Roman Catholics. It was not an exclusive penalty; the fact was, if it were a penalty towards any, it was an equal penalty towards all. It

would affect Protestant and Catholic alike. But, on the subject

of penalty, if we took the case of any one Roman Catholic fortyshilling freeholder, who had registered his privilege in compliance with the directions of his landlord,-of one of these marksmen, who could not write his name,—if we looked at the individual loss that would be sustained, we should find that it could not be very great. Mr. Peel mentioned the following instance of the power of the priests as having occurred at the Clare election. At the commencement of that election, a landlord of the county had promised what was called his interest to Mr. V. Fitzgerald; the landlord had a voter on his estate, who was under great personal obligations to him, and previous to the commencement of the contest, he said to this voter, "I shall vote for Mr. Fitzgerald, I suppose you mean to do the same." The man was only astonished at the implied doubt which his landlord's mode of expression appeared to convey, and declared his determination to imitate the example of his patron at the approaching election. Well, as the struggle grew nearer, a degree of excitement was produced to which it was only necessary to allude: the freeholder did not escape its effects he came to his landlord with 60l. in his hands, and addressed him thus:-"I have saved this sum while your tenant, and upon your property. I cannot redeem the promise which I gave you, there-take the 601., make use of it to promote the interests of Mr. Fitzgerald, but my vote I must give to O'Connell." Could any thing be so painful as the situation of him who was obliged to perform such a partto observe such a doubtful contest between his religion and his con

science? The bill was calculated, when carried into effect, to raise up a real, substantial, independent yeomanry in Ireland, and rescue the forty-shilling freeholders from the consequences of such conflicts. These grounds should not be omitted in a consideration of the question; but at the same time it was certain, he admitted, that except we were able to promise a satisfactory adjustment of the Roman Catholic question, there was not the least chance of this measure being listened to. It would have been impossible to withdraw existing privileges, however they might have been abused, without offering a compensation, by granting the enjoyment of beneficial and legitimate power, in lieu of the dangerous and illegitimate power which was proposed to be taken away.

Only seventeen members voted against the bill; and even in Ireland no loud expression of opinion was heard against it. The Association had ceased to sit. O'Connell, who had publicly bound himself to reject even emancipation, if accompanied by such a condition, and to perish in the field, or on the scaffold, in defence of the freeholders whom he affectionately denominated his "forties," had forgotten all his vows, and became silent and acquicscent.

His own claims were the next thing that excited attention; they were asserted with much more vivacity, though not with greater success. At the time of the Clare election, he had assured the people that he was entitled to sit in Parliament without taking the oaths which no Catholic could take; on this he had staked his professional reputation, and given assurances that he held other

learned opinions to the same purport. His return had been petitioned against, on the ground of his being a Catholic; but the committee, to whom the petition was referred, had reported that he was duly elected. They could come to no other conclusion. The law did not say that a Catholic might not be elected; it only said that no person elected should be capable of sitting, unless he took certain oaths, which oaths involved an abjuration of popery. If a person, known and believed to be a Catholic, could bring himself to take these oaths, and abjure his religion, he was entitled to take his seat. Mr. O'Connell had not made the attempt under the old law: prudent advice had kept him back from a proceeding which would have been irritating in itself, and which must either have been desperate, or if successful, would only have proved practically that the Relief bill was unnecessary; since, even under the law which it was intended to alter, Catholics were not excluded from Parliament. The new act did not seem to forward his pretensions. The oath, indeed, which it substituted for those that were abrogated, could be taken by a Catholic as well as by a Protestant; but then that provision was expressly limited to the case of "any person professing the Roman Catholic religion, who shall after the commencement of this act be returned as a member of the House of Commons.". But Mr. O'Connell had been returned long before the commencement of the new act. His claims had arisen under the old law, and by that old law they were to be decided.

This seemed to be plain enough; but Mr. O'Connell and his friends