The debate on the second reading of the Franchise Bill
began on Monday in the House of Commons, Lord John Manners moving a resolution to the effect that the House declined to pass judgment on the Franchise Bill without seeing the whole Reform plan of the Government. His arguments were not re- markable. He expressed his complete inability to understand Mr. Gladstone's statement that there would be less injustice in passing this measure, even if it be impossible for the same Parliament to pass a Redistribution measure, than there would have been in 1866, on the ground that, after this Bill passes, the Redistribution measure can really disfranchise no one, bat will, at most, transfer a borough voter to a county, or a county voter to a borough, which would not have been the case in 1866, —surely a very intelligible and simple proposition, which Lord. John Manners might have understood if he would. He insisted. on the injustice of transferring English Members to Scotland, and said that Wales, not England, should give up seats, since Wales had a Member for every 45,400 of her population, Ire- land one Member for every 51,236, England one Member for every 54,216, and Scotland one Member for every 64,278. He declared the " peasantry " to be represented already, "to a. limited extent, possibly, but to that limited extent completely represented,"—'a very mysterious saying,—and he described the Bill as giving a blank cheque for two millions, payable to the joint order of the President of the Board of Trade and the honourable Member for the City of Cork.
