the ranks of Irish reform, Maguire withdrew his motion, believing that the eyes of Ireland's governors had at length been opened to the truth. In consequence of the after effects of the Fenianism of 1867, a Coercion Act was passed in 1870 to combat the terrors of disaffection. In the autumn of 1870 Gladstone tried to persuade the Cabinet to release the Fenian prisoners, but it was not until the end of the year that they emerged from their captivity. In 1871 a committee was appointed to inquire into the outrages in Westmeath, and as a result of its labours a repressive law was passed. On that occasion Gladstone said

"What we have to do is to defy Fenianism, to rely on public sentiment, and so provide (as we have been doing) the practical measures that place the public sentiment on our side, an operation which I think is retarded by any semblance of severity to those whose offence we admit among ourselves to have been an ultimate result of our misgovernment of the country.'

» 2

It was indeed a signal step in advance that a foremost British statesman should openly avow that the disorders of Ireland were the result of her misgovernment.

1 Appendix LVIII, quotations from J. S. Mill, John Morley, and B. Disraeli. 2 Appendix LVIIIA, extract from speech by W. E. Gladstone.

CHAPTER XI

IRISH REFORM BILLS OF 1832, 1850, AND 1868

THE first Irish Reform Bill after the Union was introduced on the 19th of January, 1832, and read a second time on May 25 of the same year. It proposed, as regards counties, to retain the £10 freehold franchise of 1829, and to extend the right of voting to leaseholders of sixty years possessing a beneficial interest in their holdings of the clear yearly value of £10, and to those of fourteen years with a beneficial interest of the value of £20. In regard to boroughs it proposed to limit the franchise to £10 freeholders, £10 occupiers, and leaseholders of such terms as would give the right of voting in the counties; and finally to disfranchise the corporations, and to increase the representation by giving one member each to the cities of Galway, Belfast, Limerick, Waterford, and Dublin. The Bill was naturally looked upon with disfavour by Irish reformers; for in 1829 the forty-shilling freeholders had been disfranchised-a measure which had reduced the county constituency of Ireland from 200,000 to 26,000-and the new Bill did not even reinstate these people. O'Connell therefore proposed various amendments to meet this grievance, but they were all rejected in turn. He moved an instruction that the forty-shilling franchise which had been abolished in Ireland in 1829 should be restored. It was shown by N. P. Leader that 190,000 persons had been divested of the right of voting, and Sheil urged that if there were any sincerity in the desire professed to assimilate the privileges of the two nations, the opportunity ought now to be taken for doing so. The amendment, however, was lost by 122 against 73. Another amendment was moved by Sir Robert Heron, and supported by O'Connell, that the new seat which it was proposed to give to the University of Dublin should be conferred upon the county of Cork, the city of Londonderry, or the city of Kilkenny, but it was defeated by 147 to 97. Another was moved by Sheil, having for its object the omission of the clause requiring payment of rates in cities and boroughs, which he argued would prove a fertile source of corruption and fraud: but this, too, met with the same fate. At length, on the 25th of June, Stanley proposed that the franchise should be extended to £10 lease

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holders of twenty-one years, and O'Connell's suggestion that twenty years should be substituted for twenty-one having been accepted, Stanley's amendment with this slight alteration was passed. The borough franchise was also extended to householders rated at £8. At length, on the 18th of July, the amended Bill was read a third time in the Commons, and a third time in the Lords on the 30th, and eventually became law. Thus, although O'Connell and Sheil had materially aided the Government in passing the English Reform Bill, the Irish measure was slip-shod and slovenly, confined within narrow limits, and unsatisfactory even in these. The little care bestowed upon it was characteristic of the apathy of Parliament in regard to Irish affairs.1 The qualification of an Irish member for a seat in Parliament remained the same as before the Bill, and similar to the English and Welsh qualification—namely, a clear estate of £600 a year for a county seat, and £300 a year for a city or borough. Several rotten and nomination boroughs had already been disfranchised at the time of the Union, and their disfranchisement, therefore, did not form any part of the Irish Reform Act.

After the passing of the Irish Reform Bill in 1832 the franchise in Ireland lay cramped for many years within the contracted boundaries of the jealousy and apprehension of her rulers of any symptoms of the expression of the people's will. Even the restricted franchise, which had been so grudgingly conceded, was viewed with dislike by the Ascendency, whilst the old system of dealing with contested elections was regarded with growing dissatisfaction, suspicion being aroused by the large numbers of repealers that had been returned by Irish constituencies. Indeed the existing election committees were thoroughly untrustworthy, composed, as they were, of members of the House of Commons, before whom, in accordance with the provisions of the Grenville Act, all the petitions had to be tried; for they almost invariably decided in favour of the claimant who belonged to the same party as the majority of their members; so that, the composition of an election committee being ascertained, it could be predicted with tolerable certainty what its decision would be. An association known as the "Spottiswoode Association," from the name of one of the Queen's printers who presided over it, was therefore formed by the Conservatives to counteract this tendency; and it proceeded to raise funds and promote petitions against Irish returns which were alleged to have been obtained in an irregular manner by mob violence and intimidation. About

1 Sir Thomas Erskine May says of it, in his Constitutional History—“This measure was the least successful of the three great Reform Acts of 1832. Complaints were immediately made of the restricted franchise which it had created; and the number of electors registered proved much less than had been anticipated."

the same time Charles Buller,1 the popular and versatile Whig, who presided over a committee which had been formed to inquire into the whole system of elections, proposed to reduce the numbers of each election committee from eleven to five, and to place a paid lawyer in the chair, and he introduced a Bill to that effect in 1837. This proposal led to the introduction of an alternative plan by O'Connell who wished to transfer the jurisdiction of the Grenville Committee to a special jury, assisted by five members of Parliament under the presidency of the Chief Justice of England. Buller's Bill ostensibly did not apply to existing petitions; but both Conservatives and Radicals perceived that a slight amendment could give a retrospective effect to the Bill. The Radicals, in consequence, alarmed at the organization of the "Spottiswoode gang," as its opponents called it, desired to defer the consideration of the election petitions, until after the passage of the Bill into law. The Conservatives, on the contrary, wished to postpone the debates on the Bill until after the consideration of the election petitions. The second reading of Buller's Bill was, however, carried, O'Connell abandoning his own proposal in order to support it; but the measure was subsequently dropped, as Whigs and Radicals found that they clearly could not make it apply to existing petitions, a discovery which removed the chief object they had in bringing it forward.

In 1840 the question was again raised, and a Bill was introduced and carried by Peel to meet various complaints which had arisen in Ireland of the unfair constitution of election committees, and in particular of the "Spottiswoode gang." Charles Buller had proposed to reduce the number on each committee to five, and to authorize the Speaker to appoint three barristers who should act as chairmen and form a permanent court of appeal from the revising barristers. In 1838 Peel had brought in an alternative plan, which was referred to a Select Committee; and at the beginning of 1839 Lord Mahon submitted a new scheme. Like Peel, he desired the Speaker to appoint a committee of selection; but, unlike Peel, he delegated to this committee the duty of choosing three assessors. But his proposal was rejected, and Peel thereupon in 1840 reintroduced his own scheme of 1838, which, after being slightly amended, was passed into law. By the provisions of this Bill the Speaker was authorized to appoint a general committee of elections, to which was to be delegated the duty of selecting election committees. In this manner it was hoped that the purity of elections would be secured.

The same year the question of registration came under consideration. The Irish had long protested against the injustice of 1 Charles Buller (1806-1848), member of Parliament for Liskeard. Appointed Judge-Advocate General by Russell in 1846.

their registration law and the procedure of election committees, and as the Ascendency could not in this case plead the convenient poverty and rights of the landlord as an excuse for legislative delay, a Bill was introduced by Stanley in 1840 to remedy the defect. The electoral law of Ireland differed notoriously from that of England. In Ireland two assistantbarristers, appointed for the purpose, sat four times a year to revise the list of voters, and a person claiming to vote for the first time was obliged to prove his title. The claim of the voter was, in fact, disputed as a matter of course, whilst in England, on the contrary, it was admitted as a matter of course, unless actually challenged. Again, in England the claim of the voter could be objected to at any annual revision, whilst in Ireland a claim, when once it had been allowed, was valid for eight years. Moreover the Irish law discouraged the enfranchisement of the poorer and more ignorant voters, but encouraged the manufacture of faggot votes, for the claimant was allowed to register his claim in any part of the county, and thus a rich man might do so at a distance from his house and gradually tire out his objectors by renewing it quarter after quarter until it was allowed. When the claim was once established, the voter was entitled to a certificate from the clerk of the peace authorizing him to vote at any election for the next eight years, during which time he could, if he pleased, apply for a fresh certificate every half year, and, if dishonest, place the certificates at the next election in the hands of different persons, thus enabling all of them to vote irregularly. Stanley's Bill of 1840 proposed to sweep away the whole fraudulent system of certificates, to authorize the assistant-barristers to revise the registers once in every year, and to permit an appeal from their decisions to a judge on assize. The Whig Government opposed the Bill, on the ground that it would act as a measure of virtual disenfranchisement, and interposed an English Registration Bill the same year for the purpose of delaying it, but their strategic measure was defeated. O'Connell supported the Government in their opposition, declaring in the House that it was a Bill for trampling on the liberties of the people of Ireland; upon which several honourable members hooted, whistled, and laughed like a mob of roughs full in his face. At each insult he repeated the words, and after the third repetition exclaimed, "If you were ten times as beastly in your uproar and bellowing, I should still feel it to be my duty to interpose to prevent this injustice." It was not the last time that such scenes were to occur, and honourable members to forget in their anti-Irish heat the behaviour of gentlemen and their love of fair play. John Stuart Mill wrote"If all mankind, minus one, were of the same opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no