THE IRISH FRANCHISE.
(TO TEE ED/TOR OF THE "SPECTATOR.')
Sin,—In an article in your paper of the 28th August, entitled, "A Political Lesson from Oxfordshire," I find the following sentence ;—" If there had been no household suffrage in towns, the Labour Laws would never have been reconstructed, amid such a chorus of acclamation from both sides of the House."
This paragraph implies that there is a household suffrage in towns. And so there is in English towns, but not in Irish towns. Instead of a household suffrage in Irish towns, there is required for the Parliamentary franchise a valuation of "more than 14," and for the municipal a valuation of 210. In addition to this distinct difference between the two franchises, there are in Ire- land a host of impediments in the working of the law which make it impossible for hundreds, indeed I might safely say thousands,
entitled to the franchise to possess themselves of it. Given niggardly by one hand, it is taken back wholesale by the other. Instead of troubling you with statistics on this point, I beg to send you a pamphlet -which I have prepared on the subject of the "English and Irish Franchises." You complain, and very justly, of the miserable condition of the labourers' dwellings in English counties ; I assure you the dwellings of the artisans and labourers in Irish towns are quite as bad.
1 may conclude by applying your own words (slightly altered), referring to English counties, to our Irish towns :—" Until there is a household suffrage in Irish towns, we have not the slightest hope of seeing any adequate sanitary reforms effected."—I am,
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