franchise, which now prevailed with lease- | hold freeholders.

political jobs, as if this bill had never passed. What guard did the bill give against that evil? None. The words that limited the disfranchisement to 40s. freeholders ought to be struck out, and the bill be made to operate against fraudulent holders in fee, as well as against fraudulent leaseholders. The proposed disfranchisement of holders in fee in Ireland was opposed, as affording a precedent for the disfranchisement of the same class of English voters; but, the disfranchise

Mr. Littleton observed, that it was inconvenient to enter into a discussion of particular clauses at present; as that would be more properly the business of the committee. As to the proposed extension of disfranchisement to holders in fee, he should oppose it with all his might, and he expected every gentleman of England would join him in that opposition. He wished to disfranchise 40s. freeholders, merely because they exercised the electivement of the 40s. freeholders was a strong franchise by a fraud on the constitution, precedent; for, if the Irish 40s. freeagainst the spirit of the law. He hoped, holders were transplanted to England, therefore, that the hon. member for they would possess their elective rights as Louth would be induced from the sense clearly as the holders in fee. His reawhich the House shewed on the question, soning in that House was said to differ to abandon the idea of extending the dis- from his evidence before the lords' comfranchisement beyond the 40s. freeholders. mittee; but that he denied. He was exAs to the period, when the bill should amined mainly as to facts, but was not commence its operation, he was himself of asked what plan he would devise to reopinion, that the right of suffrage should medy the evils which he described. Their cease at the expiration of the term of lordships did not go deeply enough into registration. Other gentlemen were in- the question with him. However, he clined to fix it at the expiration of the would vote for committing the bill; from lease; but that was a question which a hope that it would be so shaped in the might be arranged in the committee. committee, as to do more good for Ireland than he expected from it.

Mr. L. Foster said, he had voted for the second reading of the bill, from a hope that in the committee it might be so framed, as to become a remedy for some of the evils which afflicted Ireland. He, however, could not avoid expressing his apprehension, that it would generate evils which it professed to suppress, and, that it would afford temptations to the commission of perjury by the peasantry, when changing the old tenures into the new. All he was anxious for was, the repeal of the act brought in by the member for the Queen's county. But, in reference to the holders of land in fee, it was worthy of being remembered, that the very measure which reduced the number of fraudulent 40s. lease-holders, gave an additional importance to the fraudulent hoders in fee, who would be left untouched. The present bill would not suppress the fraudulent connexion existing between the dependant cotter and his commanding landlord; for, the moment it was passed, the landlords would give the cots as free gifts to the peasantry, while they would let the lands to them only from year to year: so that the cotter being dependant on his landlord for the possession of the land from which he derived his subsistence, would be as much his slave, and the passive tool of his

Sir John Newport rose for the purpose of deprecating discussion on this question at present; as all the grounds must be gone over again in the committee, in which alone a satisfactory result could be come to.

Sir John Wrottesley contended, from the principles of human nature, which evinced a desire to obtain political power, that the Irish Catholics must be dissatisfied with the present measure. He thought Catholic emancipation necessary to the solid union of the kingdoms; but must object to the disfranchisement of 200,000 freeholders, as a great measure of parliamentary reform proposed on the slightest evidence.

Mr. Dawson objected to going into a committee too precipitately. He said, that the hon. member for Staffordshire could blame nobody but himself for this delay, as he had himself deprecated any discussion on the second reading of the bill, by announcing his intention of offering a clause altering the whole nature of the bill. He had therefore passed the bill through a stage, when it was usual to discuss the principle, and having now changed the principle by the introduction of new matter, he could not be surprised that those, among whom he was one, should

object to any proposition which tended | by which they were to secure their adto check discussion upon this most im-vancement in life; no landlord, however portant measure. He considered the pure his views, could sacrifice himself question asscarcely less important than the without a hope of good arising from his Catholic question, but it came in under devotion. He was warranted in saying, inauspicious circumstances, chained to a that the landlords of Ireland saw the evil, great question, Catholic emancipation, and wished to correct it; but until the with which it had no natural connexion, legislature laid the foundation for this reand doomed to suffer all the penalties of form, by defining clearly the amount this unnatural union. The object of his which ought, in the altered state of things, hon. friend in bringing it forward, was to to constitute the freehold right of voting serve the Catholic question; it was the same in Ireland, it would be chimerical to supwith the payment of the Catholic clergy; pose that the landed proprietary would all three questions, separate and distinct abandon the first influence arising from in themselves, and all worthy of the serious the possession of land, though managed consideration of parliament, were blended in its present injurious manner, in order into one great whole, and were to stand to leave the power of returning their reor fall together. He, and many others, presentatives to parliament, to men genwere involved in a dilemma by this mode erally known as middle men, who would of proceeding. He must either vote for willingly sacrifice every object of public the bill as it stood, and thereby give an good for the temporary advantage arising indirect support to the Catholic question, to themselves from selling their political which he had always opposed, or he must influence, or rather, their perjured freeoppose the Elective Franchise bill, and holders, to the best bidder.-But it was thereby lose the great advantages which asked, would the tenantry consent to part the bill was calculated to confer upon Ire- with this valuable franchise? Valuable ! land. Under such conflicting circumstan- it was of no value to them; they do not ces, he could not bring himself to impose consider it of value; they look upon it Catholic supremacy upon the people of rather as an incumbrance; it is in fact Ireland, even though he was advancing but a trust, exercised by them at the dicone step towards the overthrow of that tation of their landlords, and often to frightful system of perjury and demoral- their own peril. He was convinced that ization, arising out of the election laws. they oftentimes considered themselves He repeated that he would have no ob- as much degraded by the ceremony of jection to support the measures separate being pompously led up to the poll, as from, but not conjointly with, Catholic their landlords were annoyed at the reemancipation; for he thought the evils sponsibility imposed upon them. But if the arising from the latter would by no means tenantry considered this franchise so valube compensated by the good resulting able, why were there no petitions against from the reformation of the elective fran- the present bill? Time enough had been chise. A great deal has been said of the given to have this measure discussed and injustice of this measure, and of its un- re-discussed in every county in Ireland; popularity in Ireland. But how does the public meetings might have been called, question stand? There are two parties parishes might have been summoned to interested, the landlords and the tenan- meet, and, if there had been any public try; the landlords of Ireland were almost feeling upon the subject, it might have been to a man in favour of reform in the Elec- represented in petitions to this House tive Franchise; they were obliged, by the from the remotest corner in Ireland. But, baneful practice of the country, to follow where were they? Not one, nay, not a the system of subdividing their lands, and single solitary petition had been presentof creating thereby a political interest; ed to the House. He had himself some they were obliged by the inveteracy of doubts whether the measure might not be the custom to follow the old and noxious disagreeable to the constituent body in plan of making a pauper tenantry, at the Ireland, and he had endeavoured to ascerexpense of their lands, their property, and tain the feelings of the tenantry in the even their character, in order to maintain North, where it was allowed there was their relative superiority in political power more political independence than elseover the small jobbers of the country, who where; he had endeavoured to make converted the few acres which they might many with whom he was connected sensipossess into a manufactory of freeholders, ble of the loss which was about to be

fraud and perjury; but his principal reason for proposing a qualification of 201. was, a sanguine expectation, that it would be the means of raising up and supporting a yeomanry in Ireland, a body of men at present unknown, and the want of which was one of the greatest disadvantages under which the country laboured. If such a body were once formed, why might we not anticipate the same benefits to Ireland as had been conferred upon England by their independence, intelligence, and industry? If honourable members thought the qualification too high, and likely to lessen the Catholic interest in Ireland, in the event of the bill for the relief of the Catholics being passed, he would not press it; he was open to conviction upon that point; in proposing the amount of 201. he had no design to lessen the power of the Catholics. As he said before, his

inflicted upon them; he had recommended the propriety of petitioning, but he found no sensitiveness upon the subject; he had even gone so far, knowing the total absence of public opinion upon any great question in Ireland, as to appeal to their fears and their prejudices; he had even caused it to be hinted to them, that their quiet acquiescence in the disfranchisement would confer power upon the Catholics; but in vain he applied this touchstone; even in the Orange North, he could not discover any sensibility upon the subject, and he was convinced that the people of Ireland would view a reform ation in the elective franchise with the greatest apathy, if left to their own unbiassed judgments; nor will there be any adverse expression of the public opinion upon the subject, unless it shall suit the purpose of some of the political agitators of the day to make this a subject of de-support of this measure should be unconclamation, and to instil their own perverted notions upon the subject into the minds of the peasantry, who would, if left to themselves, view the change with the most perfect indifference. Such, he was convinced, is the feeling of the public mind in Ireland; but if events, particularly with respect to the Catholic question, happen adverse to the wishes of the supporters of that measure, he had no doubt, that in the approaching recess every endeavour would be used to inflame the Catholic freeholders against what would be termed this new invasion of their natural rights. With respect to the present bill, he did not think that its provisions were calculated to meet the evil in the proper manner; he objected most strongly to the change which his hon. friend, the member for Staffordshire, proposed to introduce into the bill, by allow ing the present holders of freehold leases to vote during their natural lives. He most earnestly requested him to adhere to his original proposition of abolishing all 40s. freeholders at the end of the present regis tration of their votes; for his own part, he would be pleased if the right of voting was raised from forty shillings to twenty pounds a year; and though he did not expect to be supported in such a proposition, yet be felt himself bound to express his opinion candidly, and he felt convinced, that a freehold of 201: per annum was a better qualification, and more consistent with the purity of election, than the present qualification, be cause it was a surer safeguard against

nected with the Catholic question; and if he thought that the passing of this measure would in any degree defeat the object of the Catholic bill, he would not upon any account have recourse to such a subterfuge. He opposed the admission of the Catholics into parliament upon principle, because he thought the spirit and effect of the laws was, to exclude them; but if the laws were altered, and the principle abandoned, he, for one, would not vote for any indirect means of excluding them. When once the law declared their eligibility, he would be among the first to receive them without suspicion. Under such circumstances, he hoped his honourable friend, the mem→ ber for Staffordshire, would attend to the suggestions of those persons more parti cularly connected by family and property with Ireland, and whose sole object must be, to render the bill palatable to the people of Ireland, and a safe experiment in the eyes of all well-informed people on the state of that country; he begged him, therefore, to adhere to his original bill, of allowing the franchise to expire at the end of the registration of the vote, and not with the life of the holder of the lease. He would support also the modification of the right, of voting in right of a fee, of 40s; he would wish to raise the standard of that right arising either from a fee or from leases in perpetuity, to a higher rate, reserving to the present holders their right, but guarding against the abuses of creating fictitious tenures in fee; under such limitations, the measure should have his support.

Lord Ebrington said, that though he was warmly attached to the cause of parliamentary reform, he would vote for the present bill; because it would confer a valuable boon on the people of Ireland, and would conciliate to the cause of emancipation many persons who would otherwise remain hostile to it.

Lord Corry said, he was convinced of the inexpediency of granting Catholic emancipation, but felt that the evil of such a measure would be much mitigated by the passing of the present act,

Mr. Carus Wilson condemned this measure, because it took from the lowest classes of the community a privilege of inestimable value. In allusion to what had fallen from an hon. and learned gentleman the other night, about the practice of a certain powerful individual in a northern county, he could only say, that he understood it to have been that person's practice, long before an election for the County in question was supposed to be a probable matter of contest, to let his property from year to year. And he (Mr. W.), who had property in the same county, had adopted the same plan. It was due to the individual thus alluded to to state, that he had never heard of a single instance of even the poorest peasant on that person's estates having been in any way molested or disturbed, on account of the vote he might have chosen to give on the occasion in question. Under all the circumstances, he did think that the present measure for disfranchising so many freeholders was founded only on a certain contingency, which it was not clear had happened. Considered as a measure good in itself or otherwise, he should be extremely reluctant to support it. If the hon. mover could satisfy him that it would improve the independence of those whose state of dependence it considered as an evil, he would vote for it; but if not, he must decline to do so,

Mr. Hume observed, that he rose to take a course on this question different from that adopted by every other member. [a laugh]. He meant to say, that nobody had as yet concluded his speech by put ting any specific motion into the hands of the Speaker. Now, that was what he meant to do before he sat down. This measure he considered to be, perhaps, the most important of any which had ever been brought forward, since he had had the honour of a seat in that House; and yet, a number of hon. gentlemen had

hitherto had but little opportunity of expressing their opinions on its principle. In objecting to this bill, as he did most strenuously object to it, in toto, he begged at the same time explicitly to state, that it did not in the slightest extent alter the principles of that support which he had ever felt disposed and determined to afford to the great measure of Catholic emancipation. He would declare, however, that if the substance of this measure had been introduced as a clause into the bill for the emancipation of the Catholics, he would rather have voted against that great measure itself, while it possessed any such clause, than support for one moment such an enormous invasion of the rights and privileges of so large a class of people as this bill for the abolition of the 40s. freeholders' franchise went to commit. In the first place, he would observe, that there was nothing before the House no evidence of a nature to be relied on that could at all justify, or bear out the recital in the preamble of the abuses and causes which were said to render this bill necessary, He would refer the House particularly to what they bad heard that night; and then he would ask them, what was the effect of the testimony upon which they were legislating, in the face of such information as had been communicated to them in the course of these discussions? He would refer them to the evidence on this most important subject, that was contained in the speeches of the hon. members for Louth, Clare, and Derry. If its amount were carefully considered, it would be found to tell strongly in disproof of the asserted necessity for the present bill, Even the evidence that had been given before the House by Dr, Doyle, upon whose testimony many hon, gentlemen so strongly relied, disproved it; or, at any could not help protesting against the inrate, did not justify it. And here he sufficiency of the evidence given before the committee, as to any grounds for legis. lating on the subject now before this House. The fact was, that every question which was addressed to every witness then and there examined, was put in this manner" Would you have any objection to such a measure, provided we give you such another ?" making emancipation, as it were, the alternative. Surely this was altogether unfair, as a mode of questioning, to elicit answers that could be safely proceeded on as evidence in a case of this moment and extent. Before he sat down,