The Irish Members almost won a victory on Wednesday, and
deserved it, for they were in the right. Mr. Butt moved the second reading of his Bill for transferring to elected County Boards the powers now belonging to Grand Juries, and he made out an unanswerable case. The Grand Juries in Irtland are not, as in England, composed of the country gentlemen, ,but of their agents, who of course job for the benefit of the estates they manage. The rates amount to 2s. in the pound, and the ratepayers have no control over them. Mr. Butt proposed that the ratepayers should elect three and the magistrates one member for every barony. Sir M. Hicks Beach defended the existing system, on the ground that the Grand Juries did not job and did their work well, and that in England the elective system had not been adopted, but on a division he only threw out the Bill by 182 to 125. We hope the Irish Members will see in that division evidence that there is no desire to neglect their proposals, when they are practical and tend to the removal of a visible grievance. Next year that Bill ought to be carried.
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