from being elected to parliament, although they possessed, or might possess, the elective franchise. As for danger in the present measure, he saw none; and he denied that it bound its advocates to support any ulterior measure. The Catholics of England were few in number; and even in Lancashire, the county in which their party was strongest, he did not believe that they would have influence enough to return a single member to parliament. The law of exclusion at present was one of the very worst character. Its enforcement depended upon the pleasure of individuals, who would never make use of it upon public grounds, or upon principle; because the individual who barred the Catholic from voting, was always the party against whom he was going to vote. If the exclusion were to continue, he would prefer seeing the veto made absolute, to leaving the law in its present state; but, as he thought that admission could do no possible mischief, and that much advantage would accrue out of that community of feeling between Catholic and Protestant, which the bustle of an election would produce, he gave his hearty support to the measure. sure for placing English Catholics on an equal footing with those of Ireland, by giving them the elective franchise, and admitting them to hold certain offices. At the suggestion of Mr. Canning, it was divided into two bills; the first of which was confined to the grant of the elective franchise by repealing so much of the statute of William III, as related to the administration of the oath of supremacy to persons voting for members of parliament. This concession, being supported by Mr. Peel, passed the Commons without much difficulty. The objection relied on, especially by Mr. Bankes, was, that this was the first step to further encroachment, and that it was inconsistent to give Catholics the right of voting for members of parliament, and yet exclude them from sitting there themselves. Mr. Peel declared, that he could not see, how, upon granting the elective franchise to the Catholics, he was at all bound to grant them the further right of sitting in parliament. In fact, the two things had no connexion with each other. The hon. memThe hon. member for Corfe Castle had said"This measure gives us a class of men who may make members of parliament, but who cannot become members of parliament themselves." Why, what was there new in this? From the different rights attaching to different kinds of property, there were already thousands On the 9th of July, lord Lansof men in the country who could downe moved the second reading of vote for members of parliament, it in the House of Lords. It was and yet could not sit in parliament supported by the bishop of Northemselves; and vice versa, there wich, lord Westmoreland, lord were many, who were competent Liverpool, lord Melville, and lord to sit in the House, but who had not Harrowby; but it was vehemently not qualification for voting. There opposed by lord Redesdale, and the were, for instauce, the clergy of Lord Chancellor. The result of a England, a whole body of indivi- division was a majority of 7 duals who were excluded by law against the bill; the numbers The principal division on the bill took place in the Committee, where it was carried by a majority of 89 to 30. being as follows: Contents, 43; Proxies, 30-73: Not-contents, 41; Proxies, 3980. The second bill-that for making Catholics eligible to certain offices in England also passed the House of Commons, but it was not introduced into the Lords; the mar quis of Lansdowne having, even before the rejection of its comrade, expressed his willingness to defer the consideration of it till the following session, in order to give time for its full discussion. On the 3rd of July, leave was asked and obtained in the House of Commons for sir Henry Parnell, and sir John Newport, to bring in a bill to enable Roman Catholics to make and execute gifts and grants for pious and charitable purposes; but nothing was done in pursuance of this permission. The only effect of it was, to excite the vigilance of the opponents of the Catholic cause; and, in partieular, to induce lord Colchester to move for returns of the number of Roman Catholic Chapels, Schools, Academies, Colleges, and religious houses in England, and also of the number of persons belonging to such monastic establishments, or bound by monastic or religious vows. This motion was reprobated by lord Rosslynas inquisitorial, and, at the recommendation of the lordchancellor, it was withdrawn by the noble mover, who stated, however, that he would renew it, if any step should be taken towards such a bill as that which had been mentioned in the House of Com mons. A number of petitions in favour of parliamentary reform were presented; among which, that of Yorkshire was the most conspicucus. It boasted of being 380 feet in length, and of having 17,083 VOL. LXV. signatures. This was considerably more than two-thirds of all the free-holders of the county; for, at the contested election sixteen years before, when every part of Yorkshire was ransacked for voters, only 23,070 came to the poll. Lord Milton, in presenting the petition, stated, that the utmost pains had been taken to exclude the names of persons who were not bona fide freeholders; and he did not believe, having gone over the whole of them, that there were fifty to which an exception could be reasonably made. One or two had signed as trustees, a few more as freeholders of Hull, and of York, who ought properly not to have been included, and he believed that the names of five females would be found upon the list. 111. On the 24th of April, lord John Russell moved, that the present state of parliamentary representation required the most serious consideration of the house; lord Normanby seconded the motion, which was supported by Mr. Ricardo, sir J. Newport, and sir F. Blake, and opposed by sir H. East and Mr. R. Martin. The house divided, for the motion, 169 against it, 280,-majority, The discussion was exceedingly languid and did not excite much interest. Lord J. Russell's plan of reform was, to have a hundred members, to be taken from the quota now furnished by the boroughs, added to the representation of the counties and populous towns. The only circumstance, in which it differed from the scheme proposed by him in the preceding year, was, that he now professed his willingness to acknowledge the right of the boroughs, which should be disfranchised, to have compensation for the loss of their privilege. [G] In Scotch counties, the right of voting is annexed, not to the proprietorship, but to the feudal superiority, of the land. On the 2nd of June, lord Archibald Hamilton, who had in former sessions called the attention of the legislature to this subject, after unfolding the evils of a system, which excluded the great mass of the property as well as of the population of the country, from political power, moved five resolutions, in which were embodied the facts and the principles which showed the necessity of an alteration. These resolutions were to the following effect: 1. That it appeared by a certified copy of the roll of freeholders of every county in Scotland, laid before Parliament in 1820, that the total number of persons having a right to vote, in all those counties together, did not exceed 2,889: 2. That, by the same return, it appeared that the greatest number of persons having a right to vote in any one county, did not exceed 240, viz., for the county of Fife; and that the smallest number did not exceed 9, viz., for the county of Cromarty: 3. That it further appeared from the same return, that many of the same persons had a right to vote in several counties, and consequently that the total number of voters for all the counties of Scotland was considerably less than 2,889: 4. That the right of voting for a representative for a Scotch county depends, not on the possession of the dominium utile of any real landed estate in such county, but on hold ing superiority over such estate, which superiority might be, and frequently is, disjoined from the property, insomuch that of all the persons qualified to vote for a Scotch county, there may not be one who is possessed of a single acre of land within the county; while the whole of the land may belong to, and be the property of, persons who have not a single vote for the representative: 5. That the house would, early in the next session of parliament, take into its most serious consideration the state of the representation of counties in Scotland, with a view to effect some extension of the number of votes, and to establish some connexion between the right of voting and the landed property of that country. The remedy, which lord A. Hamilton recommended in his speech, was, to leave existing rights untouched, but to increase the number of electors by giving votes to those to whom the do minium utile of the land belonged. These principles and resolutions were opposed by sir George Clerk, Mr. H. Twiss, lord Binning, and the Lord Advocate. Their only arguments were, that the people of Scotland did not complain, and that, in fact, the electors were nearly all land-owners. The first topic was obviously one of declamation and not of argument; and the other tendered an issue altogether erroneous: for the gravamen of the charge made by lord A. Hamilton was not that the actual electors had no connection with the land-but, that it was not their property in land which gave them their vote that the vote might be separated totally from substantial property-and that, in point of fact, only a very few of the land-holders of Scotland had any share in the elections. The resolutions were supported by lord Milton, lord Glenorchy, sir James Macintosh, and Mr. Kennedy. The previous question being put on the first resolution, the House divided: the Ayes, 117; the Noes, 152; which gave against lord A. Hamilton's motion, a majority of only 35.* The announcement of the numbers was received with loud cheers from the opposition benches: and lord Milton expressed a hope, that the result of the division would be well consider ed by the whole country; and that in it the inhabitants of Scotland, who took an interest in the state of their representation, would see a much nearer prospect of their wishes being accomplished than some gentlemen who spoke, had anticipated. The magistrates of the Borough of Inverness having been removed from their office by process of law, in consequence of a legal informality, the crown had in 1822 • The following is a list of the minority on this occasion. granted a warrant, empowering certain persons, therein named, to elect counsellors for the Borough; and under this warrant, the same persons were restored to office, who had been previously [displaced as unduly elected. Lord A. Hamil ton questioned both the legality, and, in point of discretion, the propriety of this mode of proceeding: contending that the warrants ought to have directed the election to be by the open vote of the burgesses. His motion on the subject was rejected by a majority of 49 to 31. |