TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE FIVE-POUND FRANCHISE FOR IRELAND ABANDONED.
TIIE bubble has burst : the five-pound net rating qualification of Lord MORPETH'S Irish Registration Bill is to be raised to eight pounds. Lord JOHN RUSSELL said before the holydays, that the Committee on the bill was postponed till the 26th of April in order to allow time for procuring more information regarding the probable working of the five-pound qualification. Have Ministers discovered that it would give too large a constituency for Ireland ? Not they : they knew as much about the probable working of that qualification when they put off going into Committee as they do now. They put off the Committee, as Lord STANLEY told them, because they knew that they had not the slightest chance of carrying their five-pound qualification. He might have added that they had not the slightest wish to carry it. The five-pound clause was not originally a part of the Government Registration Bill for Ire- land. It was tacked to it at the last moment—a few days, perhaps a few hours, before leave was asked to bring in the bill— and that so inexpertly that the patchwork was evident to the least experienced eye. Mr. MACAULAY declared that the amount of the qualification was "not a principle"; and that any gentleman might conscientiously support the second reading of the bill even though he intended to oppose any extension of the suffrage for Ireland. The five-pound clause was admitted into the bill because Ministers were assured, by some ot' their " indepen- dent" supporters, that it would make them find favour in the eyes of Irish Liberals, and that there was not the slightest danger of their being able to carry it. The sole object of Lord MORPETH'S Registration Bill was to prevent the carrying of Lord STANLEY'S. Ministers do not stake their tenure of office even on their eight- pound qualification ; and there is nothing to show that it will give a larger constituency for Ireland than Lord STANLEY'S bill would have given. But the introduction of the five-pound clause, meant from the first to be given up, afforded those Liberal Members of Parliament who call themselves "independent," an excuse for taking part in a squabble which would otherwise have been too manifestly a mere contest between the Opposition and Ministerial parties as to which was to have the doing of the same thing. The ostentatious declaration that "five pounds was not a principle," and the postponement of the Committee jn order to blunt by lapse of time the point of Lord STANLEY'S sar- castic challenge to come immediately to the discussion of the five-pound clause—every thing shows that no extension of the suffrage for Ireland was ever contemplated by Ministers. The debates on the Irish Registration Bills have been what we have named them, mere sham-fights got up by the one party in the House of Commons, and acquiesced in by the other, for the pur- pose of gaining time. Yet although the insincerity of Ministers in proposing the new qualification for Ireland was apparent from the beginning, there have not been wanting "confiding Liberals" to profess a belief that Ministers would go out on the five-pound net rating qualification. What will these Ministerial conveniencies say now ? To judge by past experience, they will immediately set themselves to work to discover or invent some other" good inten- tion" for the purpose of attributing it to Ministers. These are the men who, although conscious that every succeeding session has detected them in the spreading of such false reports by way of pal- liating their support of Ministers, have the assurance to wonder that the people fall off from them !
Previous page
