LEAVE. FIRST RESIDING. (Hansard, 9 April 1867)

§ COLONEL FRENCH
said, that in moving for leave to introduce a Bill to amend the Representation of the People of Ireland, he should desire to explain the reason why on a previous occasion he had declined to relinquish his place on the list upon "a private Member's night" in favour of the Government measure. He believed he was correct in stating that once only in the course of his thirty-five years' experience in Parliament had an attempt been made to oust private Members from the position which they attained by the exercise of much personal watchfulness, and after the chances of the ballot. That attempt was made in the plenitude of Lord Palmerston's sway, and proved unsuccessful. He was very anxious to have an opportunity of laying his views on this matter before the House previous to the Easter recess, so as to obtain the opinions at once of the Government and of the country upon the subject. He likewise felt that a proposal emanating from a private Member might not be inexpedient, seeing that the plans propounded by successive Governments in late years had shown a steady deterioration. By the Reform Act the registered voters in Ireland had certain modes appointed for them by 1350 which they might place their names upon the register; £50 and £20 freeholders were enabled to register their right to vote for life, and those having a £10 interest could register for seven years, during which time their votes could not be questioned. When Earl Russell, however, brought forward his Reform Bill of 1850, he disregarded these circumstances. But the Bill of 1850 introduced by Earl Russell terminated in the most unjustifiable manner the rights of these persons. The excuse given was a curious one. These rights were extinguished in order that Ireland might have the benefit of a rating franchise—the very franchise which Earl Russell's Government repudiated last year in England, and went out of office rather than consent to. The nest measure on the subject was that proposed by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Oxford, which included a provision enabling Irish Peers to represent both county and borough constituencies, which was in direct contravention of the Act of Union. Very short work was made of that proposal; he himself presented to Lord Palmerston a protest, signed by eighty Members, against it, and the matter was abandoned. But more objectionable than anything else which had gone before was the measure which was brought forward last year by the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. C. Fortescue). It proposed to unite two boroughs, sometimes at a distance of sixty miles apart, and then to semi-disfranchise them. The first glance at the measure suggested that it must have been framed with the object of securing the seat of the principal Law Officer of the Crown. Of course, he did not insinuate that there had been any such object in view; but, remembering the time when Irish business was carried on by Lord Palmerston's Government with hardly any official from Ireland in the House, it was not unnatural that when a Liberal Government had the assistance of two able men in Parliament they should endeavour to keep them there. He did not propose by the present Bill to disfranchise any boroughs in Ireland, but to group with them other towns in the vicinity, so that in no case would one borough have less than 1,000 voters. Neither did he propose, as former Bills had done, to give additional Members to Cork or Dublin. Cork had already eight Members, and admitting it to be the largest county in Ireland, it must be borne in mind that Mayo, Galway, and Donegal, the next in point of size, had only eight 1351 Members collectively. What claim, then, could Cork, or Dublin either, successfully put forward to extra representation? One feature of the Bill of his right hon. Friend the Member for South Lancashire—the lodger franchise—he proposed to adopt; but fancy franchises, whether literary or monetary, whether dependent on intellectual or pecuniary qualifications, he entirely threw aside. He proposed that the county franchise should be reduced from £12 to £8; which was the limit originally fixed by the Bill of Earl Russell in 1850, and he knew no reason why it should not be adopted now. Large reductions in the county franchise had been sanctioned, in principle at least, in England. The Government of last year proposed a reduction from £50 to £14; the present Bill fixed the limit at £15. If such large reductions were expedient and proper in England, what reason was there why a corresponding reduction should not take place in Ireland, from £12 to £8? There was another reason in favour of the reduction of the county franchise in Ireland. The reduced amount of the suffrage would give landlords a greater interest in keeping their tenants upon their land, and so tend to diminish emigration. With a reduced borough suffrage from £8 to £4, there would be no difficulty in providing that every existing borough in Ireland should have a constituency of 1,000 voters. Eight towns in Ireland already had more than 1,000 voters, and with these—namely, Belfast, Cork, Dublin, Galway, Limerick, Londonderry, Newry, and Waterford—he did not propose to interfere. With twenty-five other boroughs, possessing very small constituencies, it would be necessary to deal. Portarlington, for instance, had only seventy-five voters at present. And what he proposed was, in the case of those diminutive boroughs, to group with them other towns in the neighbourhood, so as to bring up the number of their voters to the prescribed limit. The towns to be grouped were the following:—Armagh, with Portadown and Ballybay; Athlone, with Mullingar, Roscommon, and Longford; Bandon, with Drummany, Macroom, and Bantry; Carlow, with Athy, Tallow, and Bagnalstown; Carrickfergus, with Larn and Antrim; Cashel with Thurles, Tipperary, and Nenagh; Coleraine, with Ballymena, Ballymoney, and Portrush; Clonmel, with Carrick-on-Suir, Carrickbeg, and Cahir; Dundalk, with Kells, Navan, and Trim; Downpatrick, with Newtownards, New- 1352 castle, and Donaghadee; Drogheda, with Balbriggan; Dungannon, with Omagh and Strabane; Dungarvan, with Lismore and Cappoquin; Ennis, with Kilrush, Ennistimon, and Gort; Enniskillen, with Monaghan, Ballyshannon, and Cavan; Kilkenny, with Thomastown and Callan; Kinsale, with Skibbereen and Clonakilty; Lisburn, with Lurgan and Banbridge; Mallow, with Fermoy and Charleville; Portarlington, with Maryborough, Mountmellick, and Tallamore; Sligo, with Ballyna, Bailymote, and Boyle; Wexford, with Gorey and Wicklow; New Ross, with Enniscorthy and Tagmon; Tralee, with Killarney, Kenmare, and Dingle; and Youghal, with Queenstown and Middleton. He also proposed to assimilate the Parliamentary and municipal boundaries of towns. This Bill had the merit, or demerit, of not being framed to further any particular interest, but had been prepared solely with a view of giving a fair and full representation to the whole country. He hoped, therefore, that the Government would allow him to bring in the Bill, so that it might be printed and circulated, in order that the Irish Members and the Irish people might at once have an opportunity of expressing their opinion as to its provisions. He courted criticism, was ready to adopt any improvement the House might consider desirable; but, at the same time, was prepared and ready to defend the principle and detail of the measure against all comers.

§ MR. VANCE
said, he did not think that the Bill which the right hon. and gallant Gentleman had sketched was likely to find much favour in that House, especially since the Government had promised to bring forward a Bill of their own shortly after Easter. In detailing the provisions of the Bill, the right hon. and gallant Gentleman had omitted to name the sum at which he proposed to fix the borough franchise. [Colonel FRENCH: £4.] And the hon. Member proposed to have the county franchise at £8, the Government having fixed the English county franchise at £15. This did not seem to be right. The borough franchise in Ireland was now £12, and he did not think it could safely be reduced below that amount. The right hon. and gallant Gentleman then proposed to group towns with boroughs so as to make up the number of 1,000 voters, but perhaps he had not calculated how much the number of such boroughs would be increased when 1353 the franchise was brought down to £4. He (Mr. Vance) thought that additional seats should be given for places in the province of Ulster, where there was great increase of wealth and commerce. Some other districts also had a claim for more Members; and, indeed, he thought that Ireland, taken as a whole, had less Members than she was entitled to. He agreed that the proposition to allow Irish Peers to represent constituencies was very objectionable; but he hoped that the Reform Bill for Ireland promised by Her Majesty's Government would be founded on very different principles from those on which the right hon. and gallant Gentleman had proceeded.

LORD NAAS
said, that the Government did not object to the introduction of the Bill, as it was desirable that the House should see the scheme which had been framed by so experienced a Member. He must, however, reserve the opportunity of expressing his opinion on the measure until a future occasion.