of persons qualified to vote-then the election of town-councillorsand after that, the election of the mayors, town-clerks, and other officers. Under the proposed system, almost the whole of the year would be spent in proceedings preparatory to, or connected with popular elections. In such a state of things, would it be contended by any man, that the different parties in the towns would not be strongly opposed to each other—that a system of canvassing would not be actively proceeding, and that the towncouncillors, town-clerks, and the sheriffs, would not be elected with reference to their political opinions? In towns to which the present bill would have supplied new elements of discord, would the administration of justice be more satisfactory from the simple reason, that the parties charged with its dispensation were subject to popular control? One existing evil complained of, was the intimate connexion between the corporations and the grand juries, which, it was said, would not be found under the new system; but how could it be shown, that a continual state of agitation and political contests was likely to diminish the intimacy of the connexion between the corporations and the grand juries? It was a complaint at present, that the sheriff marked his respect for the members of the corporation by selecting them in the first instance for grand jurors; but why should should the new sheriff, elected under the new system, show the corporation less courtesy? So completely was the administration of justice said to be now rendered subordinate to party considerations, that the

entertaining the most violent political opinions formed no objection to a man being a grand juror. Would that circumstance, then, be a disqualification under the new system? Would the grand jurors returned by the sheriff, who might be a great political partisan, and might select only men whose political opinions were in conformity with his own, be subject to be challenged or be deemed disqualified, if they happened to be violent politicians ? In what one respect would a system of popular election, accompanied by the excitement of party feelings, afford a security against the perversion of justice? What possible objection could there be to giving the appointment of these sheriffs to the lord-lieutenant, in whom such a power was vested in respect to the administration of justice generally, and the exercise of which was fettered by no recommendation ? The lord-lieutenant had, indeed, conceived it to be his duty to reject the recommendation of the judges. Why did not the government then propose to act in the present bill upon their own principles? If they found Ireland so divided by religious differences, and by partyfeeling, that they considered it to be their duty to refuse their sanction to the recommendations of the judges, what could induce them to think that recommendations proceeding from town councillors, elected, perhaps, after a severe and turbulent contest, might be more depended on for integrity? In truth, the proceedings of ministers were not only at variance with sound policy, but were in contravention of their own acts. They were at present carrying through a bill, which bore on its face that

the municipal authorities ought not to be trusted with the management of the police force. That bill declared, that as the appointment of the constables and the policemen by various authorities tended to destroy the efficiency of the force, it was desirable that the management of it should be taken out of the hands of the magistrates, and vested absolutely in the lord-lieutenant; and the bill provided that the lord-lieutenant should have the appointment of the police in every county, county of a city, and town in Ireland. If the principles of that bill were good, why should ministers by the present measure, establish in 126 towns in Ireland, or give the power to establish therein, a separate police, paid by different bodies appointed by different persons, and acting under different regulations?for it appeared that, according to the present bill, there must be in every incorporated town in Ireland, a watch committee, having the powers of appointing a watch?

As to corporate property, the bill, in the first place, authorised the town council to apportion, out of the borough funds, salaries to the mayor, town-clerk, treasurer, and such other officers as the council might think necessary to carry the act into execution. Here was a very copious patronage provided for the town-council. The property of the Irish corporations did not happen to be very extensive at present. The total amount of the corporate property in Ireland was in point of annual income 61,3971.; the present expenditure was 57,2791.; and the amount of debt was 133,0007. But, leaving the corporation of Dublin out of the calculation, he

found that the total amount of the property of all the other Irish corporations was 33,000l. per annum, the annual expenditure 27,000l., and the amount of debt 100,000l. The corporate property was derived from two sourcesestates in land and tolls. The bill vested the whole amount of tolls in the new corporations, depriving them of the power of reducing those which had been mortgaged for the payment of debts. For the sake of the improvement of property, the facilitation of intercourse, and the liberation of commerce and industry from the fetters of these imposts he would wish, if it were possible, to extinguish altogether the right of corporations to levy tolls; and he believed, that, by so doing, they would confer a great benefit on Ireland, and promote the interests of tranquillity and subordination. In many cases he could not conceive that any enactment would give such universal satisfaction to the population as the interference of parliament to remit these tolls, wherever they could get free of the question of compensation. Instead of levying the toll, and applying it to municipal purposes, the true way to improve the town and to attract commercial dealings to it would be to remit it altogether; and where there were individual rights to toll, in a town possessed of corporate property, it would be an excellent application of that property, wherever surplus existed, to apply it to the purchase of those individual rights.

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Although, therefore, he did not propose to vindicate the maintenance of the present corporations, he would not consent to the substitution of other corporate bodies;

for he did not believe that their re-establishment on the principles of this bill, or on any principles at all analogous to them, would be beneficial to Ireland. In the present state of that country, he saw no necessity for the continuance of corporate bodies. He thought their interference with the administration of justice positively prejudicial, and their interference with the police calculated to injure the efficiency of that force. He thought corporate property ought to be applied to local purposes; but he was not prepared to entrust its management to a town-council, with a number of servants and subordinate officers. With respect to municipal purposes not connected with the police or the administration of justice, he would leave the act 9th George IV. in operation, providing commissioners subject to popular control, and owing their election also to the popular voice. Instead of having the sheriff in counties of cities and towns appointed by the council, he would enable the crown to appoint that magistrate. He would abolish all the inferior tribunals of seneschal and baronial courts, and extend the jurisdiction of the assistant barristers. He would propose that a recorder should be appointed by the crown, who should exercise the powers at present lodged in the assistant barristers, because, in Dublin, Cork, and other towns, the weight of criminal business would be too heavy to be discharged by them; and if they could give to the inhabitants of large towns, by means of the tribunal of the assistant barristers, an easy and expeditious process for the recovery of small debts, he believed it would be a reform

which would give great and general satisfaction to the people, and would conduce to the better administration of justice. It was asked-what will you do with the political and proprietary rights of freemen? He believed that whatever was done, these rights would stand pretty much upon the same footing. They respected them now, because they knew them to be political, proprietary, and hereditary rights. Why not respect them even after the extinction of the old corporations? The House would respect their political rights, because they were guaranteed to them by the reform bill; it would respect their proprietary rights, because they were founded in justice.

"In short," continued sir Robert, "the chief object of our consideration ought to be, not to assimilate the system proposed to be followed in Ireland to that which we have adopted in England, but to ascertain by what system equal privileges and equal laws may best be secured to all. If, by self-election, you contrive to exclude, practically, one class, that system is defective; but I equally contend, that if by a principle of popular election you give the predominance to one political party over another, and involve them in a series of contests, and leave the administration of justice in the hands of the dominant party, then, I care not what your theory may be, or your law nominally may be, but I contend that that principle is calculated to work injustice, and that popular control is subject to that objection equally with self-election. Do you believe that it will cause the cessation of religious animosity in Ireland, or conduce to the administration of equal

law-to introduce a system of annual election in 126 of the Irish towns, and to place in the hands of the dominant party the appointment of the officers by whom grand juries are to be chosen I care not by whom that influence is exerted; it is a matter of indifference whether it be by landlord or priest. We have a right to proclaim the injustice that will flow from the selection of political and party men as the instruments by which justice is to be administered. Would any man be believed, who should rise in the House and say, that, in determining the elections, politics will not interfere? The member for Dublin, on the first day of this session, when speaking of the municipal councils of England said, "I believe, the sore is festering in your hearts; you regret the victory that the reformers have gained in the municipal councils; you know that they will henceforth be normal schools for teaching the science of agita

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tion." If this be true with reference to England, is it false with regard to Ireland? If you have reason to believe that, in the sent heated state of party feelings, these annual elections will engender animosities, and that these societies, instead of being the quiet governments of municipal communities for local purposes, will become the receptacles of bitterness and disaffection-then, we ask you, as you value religious peace, and equal law - and the security and integrity of this great empire, not to lend the sanction of your legislative and moral authority, to the constitu tion in Ireland of normal schools in which the science of agitation is to be taught-but, above all, we demand of you respectfully, but firmly, that you will not make the graduates in those schools, and the professors of that science, the chosen instruments for leading the civil force, and for dispensing public justice."

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HEN ministers proposed to destroy the existing corporations of Ireland, and to establish in their place a new set of corporations, which necessarily would be exclusively Catholic, they could not be ignorant that, in the House of Commons, they would have to contend with a large minority, and in the House of Lords with a large majority, which, unless acted on by some universal exterior excitement, would never consent that such a bill should pass. From the moment, accordingly, that sir R. Peel announced the course which the conservative leaders determined to pursue, Mr. O'Connell and his adherents of the Popish faction, attempted to raise a popular clamour against what they called injustice to Ireland -that is, a clamour for a bill which, while it pretended to reconstruct corporations, deprived them of every power which makes a corporation useful, and left them to be merely authorised engines of the Popish

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priesthood. But although the calls were loud, no spirits came. The people of Britain could not be roused to aid a system of exclusive popery; and parliament was left to exercise its undisturbed reason on a great political question.

The views of the conservatives, as explained by sir R. Peel, did not allow them to oppose the second reading of the bill, for they, too, agreed that the existing system of Irish corporations ought to endure no longer. But, after the bill had been read a second time, when the motion was made that the House should go into committee, lord Francis Egerton moved, that the committee should be empowered to make provision for the abolition of corporations in Ireland, and for such arrangements as might be necessary on their abolition, for securing the efficient and impartial administration of justice, and the peace and good government of cities and towns in Ireland. His lordship contended that, in thus substitu