HC Deb 17 April 1874 vol 218 cc777-84

Order for Second Reading read.

MR. BUTT

, in moving that the Bill be now read a second time, said, that its principle had been accepted in two Sessions of the late Parliament; that it had received the support of the then Ministry, and that it was defeated solely by that obstructive power which the Rules of the House placed in the hands of individual Members. The Bill involved the question whether that new Parliament was prepared cordially and honestly to concede to Ireland the free principles of the British Constitution and of British laws, or whether it intended to administer the affairs of Ireland on the old principle of coercion and distrust. The object of the measure was merely to assimilate the franchise in the corporate towns of Ireland to the franchise which existed in England. As matters stood at present in Ireland, no one could be a burgess in a corporate town, unless he occupied a house rated at £10, though the Act said the sum might be reduced by allowances for insurance and repairs. That reduced the amount practically to a house rated under the Poor Law at £8, which was equivalent in many towns to a house of £ 12 or £15 rental. He would ask all lovers of municipal institutions how this difference between the two countries could be justified? Let hon. Members contrast that with the state of things in England. As to the number of municipal electors in Ireland, there were in that country only 10 corporate towns. In Belfast, with a population of 174,000, there were only 4,300 burgesses; in Cork, with a population of 100,000, there were only 2,000; in Waterford, with a population of 23,000, only 700; in Limerick, with a population "of 40,000, only 1,100; in Kilkenny, with a population of 13,000, only 275; in Deny, with a population of 25,000, only 600; and in Drogheda, with a population of 14,000, only 283. Contrast that, again, with the state of matters in England, where such a town as Bristol, with 180,000 of a population, had 18,500 burgesses; Carlisle, which, with a population of 30,000, had 4,600 burgesses; Lichfield, which, with 7,000 of a population, had 1,026 burgesses; Cambridge, which, with a population of 33,000, had 4,300 burgesses; Chester, which, with a population of 30,000, had 6,300; or Macclesfield, which, with a population of 35,000, had 4,700. It might be said that this was a small thing; but a nation's life, like a man's life, was made up of small things, and this was one of the differences in the two countries which made the Irish people dissatisfied, because they had not the same privileges that the English people had. Looking at such inequalities as these, could any Englishman lay his hand on his heart and say that any Irishman ought to live content under the present system? Some persons had challenged the Irish Members to bring forward measures of redress. He (Mr. Butt) now endeavoured to do so, and he hoped that this, and all other Irish measures, would receive more attention than they had hitherto done. In 1849, it was found that the Corporation of Dublin did not fully represent the citizens in consequence of the peculiar division of the wards; and an Act was passed giving the Corporation additional powers, and assimilating the franchise to that of England. In 1864, the Corporation of Belfast asked for larger powers; but the Bill was refused. Now, in Ireland, the Parliamentary franchise in towns was a rating of £4, so that a man could vote for a Member of Parliament, and, at the same time, he was considered unfit to vote for a member of his Corporation, who, in turn, elected the chief magistrate. Was that a proper state of things? An Irishman left Limerick, and resided at Liverpool, and his rating there gave him a municipal vote; but if he returned to reside in Limerick he became degraded. He asked seriously, was that a proper system of government for Ireland, and ought it to be tolerated? If some of them entertained opinions in reference to a division of the two countries in regard to certain matters, let the Government and the House come forward and pass measures which should unite more strongly Ireland with England. If they passed this Bill, it would be taken sincerely and cordially as a good omen; if they refused to pass the Bill, it would be regarded as an earnest and indication that they were prepared to deal with Ireland with a high hand. Was the present system of exclusion to be continued in Ireland? It was indefeasible to have the municipal franchise higher than the Parliamentary franchise and he challenged the verdict of the House on this one issue:—Were they prepared to tell the people of Ireland they should not enjoy the privileges of the British law and Constitution, because they were unworthy to enjoy them? Let them accept this Bill as an earnest and a pledge that they would legislate for Ireland in the true spirit of the British Constitution. The hon. and learned Gentleman, in conclusion, moved the second reading of the Bill.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time."—(Mr. Butt.)

MR. VANCE

said, he could not help thinking the hon. and learned Gentleman had pursued a most inconvenient course, having persisted in bringing forward the second reading of this Bill in the necessary absence Of the noble Lord the Member for King's Lynn (Lord Claude John Hamilton), who had given Notice that he would oppose it, but who had accompanied the viceroy to Ireland. After the Report of a Commission in 1835, a Bill was brought in and passed, conferring an £8 municipal franchise on the larger boroughs, and a £1 or £5 franchise on the smaller boroughs, which came under the Improvement Act. Subsequently, a re-distribution of the wards in Dublin took place, and the franchise was lowered to £4 in that city, and an arrangement was made that the Lord Mayor should be alternately a Protestant and a Roman Catholic. It was also understood that the Corporation should be for municipal purposes, but it became Radical stronghold. Not very long ago they petitioned the House to remove Judge Keogh, and for Home Rule and, in fact, every extreme measure that could possibly be devised had been supported by this Corporation. It had raised the rates to 10s. in the pound, and, instead of attending to the proper municipal government of the city, its time was taken up with political squabbles. The Corporation of Belfast, on the other hand, was composed of the highest burgesses of the place, and was one of the most useful bodies in Ireland. The same might be said of Perry and other corporations; but if the franchise was degraded these corporations would become, like Dublin, hotbeds of disaffection, and he thought the House ought to consider well the consequences of passing such a Bill, for which no demand had been made or Petition presented. He should move its rejection.

Amendment proposed, to leave out the word "now," and at the end of the Question to add the words "upon this day six months."—(Mr. Vance.)

MR. SULLIVAN

, in supporting the Bill, said, the hon. Gentleman the Member for Armagh (Mr. Vance) had put the Corporation of Dublin upon its trial, and had made the most unfounded charges against it. The argument of the hon. Gentleman amounted to this—that although the arguments of the hon. and learned Member for Limerick might be unanswerable, the Corporation of Dublin had not represented the political views of the hon. Member for Armagh. With regard to the alleged agreement that the Lord Mayor should be alternately a Protestant and a Roman Catholic, the hon. Gentleman was labouring under a delusion, for no such compact ever existed. It was certainly true that the Catholics of Dublin for a long period in alternate years voted for a Protestant gentleman, and had put him into the civic chair—a pro- ceeding which was represented by the party who acted with the hon. Gentleman the Member for Armagh as having been achieved by a "compact." He (Mr. Sullivan) emphatically objected to that statement, and affirmed that the Roman Catholic majority in the Dublin Corporation had allowed that course to be taken as a matter of generous and wise toleration, but when the friends of the hon. Member were in a majority there and elsewhere they never gave the Roman Catholic minority a chance of electing a Lord Mayor or doing any other act of justice. That was proved in the present instance, for here they saw a Bill brought in which would simply effect an act of justice, and yet the hon. Gentleman opposed it, and would keep the people of Ireland still in chains. Further, the hon. Gentleman's memory seemed to be very bad, for in the 10s., or rather 9s. 8d., in the £1 rate of which he complained, were included the poor rate and the police rate with which the Corporation had nothing to do, they being only responsible for 5s. 8d. of the whole rate. He scorned also to have forgotten that when the reformed Corporation of Dublin came into power they found that the friends of the hon. Member opposite had brought the City to bankruptcy and beggary. They found the mace in the hands of the bailiff, and the mayoralty house about to be sold, and each of the new members of the Corporation had to subscribe £300 a-piece to purchase it back to the citizens, which sum had never been repaid to them. The whole question came to this—no one could deny that the affairs of Belfast were well-managed, and he would ask why should the great majority of the people of that city be deprived of the franchise which the Bill was intended to confer upon them, and why they and the residents of other large and important places should not enjoy equal municipal privileges? If the measure were rejected because the House sympathized with the opinions of the hon. Member (Mr. Vance), the lesson learnt by the people of Ireland would be a bitter one, and perhaps the fruit of it would not be less bitter. But "let justice be done though the heavens should fall." Let the facts and figures now produced be confuted if it were possible; but let there be no more false issues on this important question.

MR. BRUEN

said, he did not want to be included in the stigma which the hon. and learned Member for limerick laid on all those who opposed the Bill. It was said to be simply a measure to place the municipal franchise of Ireland on the same footing as that of England, but the slightest glance at the statistics would show that it was nothing of the sort. When the franchise of England was changed to household suffrage, it rather more than doubled the previous number of electors, but what would be the effect of this measure in Ireland? Taking the seven towns of the Province of Leinster, exclusive of Dublin, he found that there were now 3,210 persons possessors of the franchise under a £4 rating; but the Bill of the hon. Member would increase that number to 9,764, or three to one. And when they analysed these new voters they would find that of these a large number—about 3,000—would be holders of tenements under 20s. a-year, nearly the same number that had the franchise now, who would be swamped by them. However respectable in their station they might be, the result would be to hand over the administration of the municipal funds to a class of which a large proportion were only rated at 5s. per annum. It was clear, then, that a different state of things would be produced from that resulting from household suffrage in England, and he should accordingly support the Amendment that the Bill be read a second time that day six months.

SIR MICHAEL HICKS-BEACH

said, that was a Bill which did not relate to a large portion of Ireland, but was a matter of great importance to the 11 places which were affected by it. In discussing it he hoped to steer clear of the public and private conduct of the Corporation of Dublin, which in a few hours would be engaged in giving a loyal reception to the Representative of Her Majesty in Ireland. He wished to speak of that and of all the other corporations with respect; but neither from them, nor from any town in Ireland, had there been a single Petition in favour of the Bill, nor had there been any meeting held in its support. The hon. and learned Member for Limerick proposed that as the first of a series of measures to assimilate the law of Ireland to that of England; but he would remind the hon. Member that if this policy were carried out to its full and logical extent, it might raise hopes that he and his friends would restore to Ireland the blessing of an Established Church, and would place landlords and tenants on the same footing as that on which they stood in England. He regretted, however, that the part of our institutions which the hon. Member desired to copy was one of which the present condition was not thoroughly defensible even in England. The hon. Member proceeded on the assumption that, inasmuch as the Parliamentary and municipal franchises in England were on the same basis, that state of things must be satisfactory, and that its transfer to Ireland would be also satisfactory. He believed, however, that the adoption of the same basis for both franchises in England had led to this result—that municipal and Parliamentary elections were decided on the same party issues, and hence candidates in municipalities were too frequently selected on account of their political opinions, and not on account of their fitness for the administration of local affairs. He feared, too, the effect of the change upon the expenditure of the Irish towns, and he wished to point out that from Returns presented to Parliament in 1872, it was clear that if the proposal of the hon. and learned Gentleman were adopted, a rateable value of 83 per cent. arising from ratings above £8 annual value, would be controlled, in the proportion of 64 to 36, by a rateable value of 16 per cent. arising from ratings below £8 value, which would be a most unsatisfactory state of things. Moreover, from the same Returns, it appeared that while 72 per cent of the total income of Town Councils in Ireland arose from rates, 63 par cent of that income arose from ratings above £8; and in some cases, as in Belfast, holdings under £8 only paid—at least, for certain rates—a quarter of the poundage levied on property above that value. This was a most important consideration, for municipal affairs were little else than the management of local expenditure and taxation. He would like to see the municipal franchise lowered in Ireland, but not to such an extent as to swamp the owners and occupiers of nearly the whole of the property in the boroughs. There were other matters affecting the municipal corporations in Ireland which needed reform, and the subject, when treated, should be dealt with as a whole.

MR. W. E. FORSTER

said, he should vote for the Bill which had been supported on two occasions by the late Government. He had expected to hoar more argument in reply to the statement of the hon. and learned Member for Limerick. All the statements made by the right hon. Baronet were applicable to the municipal franchise in England, and he feared the Government meant to raise it. The real argument was, that the Irish corporations might be influenced by political feelings; but it would be far better to state that we could not admit municipal government in Ireland than to attempt to restrict it to a particular class. He thought a strong case had been made out for a large reduction of the Irish municipal franchise, though the exact rate could be fixed in Committee.

MR. CORRY

said, the people of Belfast did not want the Bill, as they were perfectly satisfied with the municipal franchise as it now stood.

MR. O'DONNELL

said, that on the part of his co-religionists in Ireland he would be satisfied with religious equality. They wanted no Established Church in Ireland even for the majority, and if they obtained by the present measure both religious equality and municipal equality they would think there was a beginning of justice for their country.

Question put, "That the word 'now' stand part of the Question."

The House divided:—Ayes 88; Noes 125: Majority 37.

Words added.

Main Question, as amended, put, and agreed to.

Second Reading put off for six months.