PARLIAMENTARY VOTERS, ETC. (IRELAND). (Hansard, 11 February 1850)

§ SIR W. SOMERVILLE,
in rising to move for leave to bring in a Bill to amend the laws for regulating the qualification and registration of Parliamentary voters in Ireland, said, it would not be necessary for him to enter into any lengthened details, inasmuch as he had twice before obtained leave of the House to lay this Bill—in substance—on the table, but which, for unavoidable reasons, it was found impossible to proceed with beyond a second reading. He might, however, say, that the necessity of some such measure had increased since the matter was last under consideration; and they had now arrived at that point when it was absolutely necessary, if they meant to have constituencies in Ireland at all—and, as they lived under a constitutional Government, he presumed it was meant to have them—that some alteration should be made. He had said that it was unnecessary for him to go into any statement of the details of the measure, for, when he first brought in the measure, he explained fully the grounds on which it was proposed to legislate, and the particular nature of the provisions of the Bill. He did not now propose any material alterations from those provisions. It would be remembered that when he brought in the previous Bill, he said he proposed to abolish all franchise resting on occupation, and to substitute for it a simple rating qualification, fixing the value at 8l., and to that principle he proposed still to adhere. In the Bill of last year he included the town constituencies, and he now included the town and borough constituencies, retaining the same amount of qualification, the 8l. rating. He proposed, however, to make one or two alterations in the Bill of a trifling nature; but, as the principle was entirely the same, he hoped 700 to be allowed to introduce it, and that the discussion would be taken on the second reading. The first alteration which he proposed to make in the Bill was to do away with the fixity of tenure, and give the franchise to all paying an 8l. rate. By the 6 & 7 Vic. c. 9, the five towns of Dublin, Cork, Waterford, Limerick, and Belfast, the immediate lesser was made answerable for the payment of the rate: he proposed that this should be extended to all Ireland. He proposed also that tenants for life of fee-simple, of the value of 5l., should have votes. The present state of things in Ireland, arising from the tenure of land, was of a most disastrous character, and he believed that if the franchise were disconnected from it, it would have a most beneficial effect. Having been permitted to introduce the Bill on a former occasion, he should not trouble the House with any further statement at present, but would simply move for leave to introduce it.

§ MR. STAFFORD
wished it to be understood that, in offering no opposition to the first reading of this Bill, no one was pledged to its principle—or that part which the right hon. Gentleman had chosen for the principle—or the details of the Bill, particularly as to the amount of qualification. The present state of Ireland—although he admitted the present was a season opportune in some respects for the introduction of a Bill of this kind—was a reason pro tanto, in his opinion, why the Bill ought not to advance further. The Bill took the franchise upon the amount of rating; but nothing could be in a more unsettled state. In the part of the country with which he was best acquainted, political changes were lost in the social miseries that existed. Great would be the disappointment of Ireland when it was found that the first measure this Session was one that did not address itself to the sustentation of human life rather than to political changes. He saw so many statements, and knew personally of so great an amount of misery in his part of the country, that he deeply regretted that the Motion which stood upon the Orders of the Day had not been taken. He regretted the illness of the right hon. Baronet the Chancellor of the Exchequer was the cause, but he trusted that the Government would not delay a single week before it addressed itself to the relief of the famine-stricken masses in Ennis, in Kilrush, in Scariff, in the county of Clare, and in other counties, 701 in all of which there reigned a state of things which was a disgrace to England. The right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for Ireland had spoken of leases; but let it not be understood that it was owing to the Act as it stood that the constituencies had been diminished. The Act, as it stood, had in it the means of creating, he might say, a multitudinous constituency; but the recent diminution had arisen from circumstances so painful, but, at the same time, so well known, that he would not introduce them. With regard to leases, there was a strong feeling in the country against them just now. The relations of landlord and tenant had been so unsettled by the potato famine, and the repeal of the corn laws, that tenants were not inclined to make permanent engagements of that kind. The state of the country was, however, only to be met by measures for the proposal of which Government was responsible.

SIR D. NORREYS
denied that the nonexistence of leases was not entirely because the tenants were disinclined to accept leases; the landlords were equally disinclined to give leases. He thought the Bill would disfranchise many freeholders.

§ MR. H. A. HERBERT
observed that any system of franchise founded on the present valuation must entail monstrous injustice, because it would differ in almost every district. He begged to call the attention of the right hon. Baronet the Secretary for Ireland to the inequality which existed in that respect, and to assure him the people would see the injustice of it.

MR. M. O'CONNELL
said, that as to the question referred to by the last hon. Member, the guardians would have the power of making a fair valuation in six months. The only objection he had to the Bill was, that the rating of 8l. was too high, and he suggested a rating of 5l. as preferable. It would turn out, that those who were expected to have a rating of 8l. could not be rated higher than at 6l. or 7l., so great had been the depreciation of property and the pressure of the poor-law. By their legislation they had made the pauper the lord in fee-simple of the land, and had taxed the hardworking for the support of the idle and lazy. Let them at least give to those who were struggling to live on worse food than the pauper got in the workhouse a right to say they had derived some benefit from the legislation of that House.

§ MR. FRENCH
was surprised at a Bill which, for the first time, introduced the 702 principle of striking off those voters who had been already placed on the registry. It was not only a Bill for the extension of the suffrage, but for the collection of the poor-rates, for the rate must be paid before the franchise was available. The tenants-at-will would be mere tools in the hands of the landlords; or, if they exercised any independent feeling, would be subject to eviction; so that great misery would be brought upon them.

§ MR. GROGAN
said, that up to a certain point he agreed with the principle of the measure, but he considered that to make it beneficial it would be necessary to introduce one general system of valuation throughout Ireland. He asked, was it intended that parties should be placed upon the register who were simply rated, or was the previous payment of the rates to be required?

§ SIR W. SOMERVILLE
said, that the payment of rates due up to the 1st of January must be made before the parties could be placed on the register.

§ MR. SCULLY
was glad to find that the right hon. Gentleman appeared at last in earnest on this subject—that he was at last aware of the absolute necessity of passing a Registration Bill for Ireland. He (Mr. Scully) trusted that the right hon. Gentleman was really in earnest, and that he meant to pass his Bill, notwithstanding the objections of hon. Gentlemen opposite with respect to the state of the poor-law valuation—objections in which, he confessed, he did not see any very great force. He hoped the right hon. Gentleman would not postpone his Bill on account of any such reasons as those, for in Ireland it was really a question, as matters now stood, of whether they should have any franchise or none. Whilst he said this, however, he bore his full testimony to what had been stated by the hon. Member for Northamptonshire as to the distress in those parts of the country to which he had referred; and he hoped they might—indeed, it was most essential that they should—have an early discussion in that House on the state of Ireland, which he considered had not been sufficiently pressed upon their attention, either in the Speech on opening the Session, or in any of the speeches of those who had addressed the House on that occasion. The state of that part of the kingdom, its wants and its grievances, were such as to require the introduction of measures by the Government calculated to raise the social condition of the people, 703 and develop, by reproductive employment, the resources of the country. He regretted that such measures had not come first on the list of the measures it was intended to bring in in reference to Ireland.

§ LORD C. HAMILTON
expressed his regret that the right hon. Gentleman had not accompanied his statement on this measure with some observations which might induce the House to hope that he was prepared to take steps to improve the present state of the valuation in Ireland, and make it more uniform. It was not now in a state which fitted it to be made the permanent basis of a franchise.