Mr. Barry on Wednesday brought forward Mr. Healy's Bill creating
Elective Councils for Irish Counties, giving them full powers of local taxation, and the right of nominating Sheriffs, Sustices of the Peace, and all other county officers. The Bill— which is absurdly extreme, as it introduces an elective Magistracy,. which, in the only place where it exists, the City of London, we are about to abolish—was warmly supported by the Par- nellite Members, but resisted by the Secretary for Ireland.. Mr. Trevelyan showed that it left most important ques- tions—for example, the right of the Councils to tax as Improvement Boards—entirely unsettled; but he rested his argument mainly on the inability of the Government to take any such Bill from a private Member. No re- sponsible Government would touch such a measure without having its details ready, and being prepared to carry it through• as a Cabinet Bill. The second reading was, therefore, defeated by 231 to 58. If the Irish are sincere in desiring local self- government, they should press it on Mr. Gladstone, not bring forward crude Bills which could not be worked, and which will make the Government Bill, when it comes, seem tame. We are heartily for local self-government in Ireland, but we reject the election of magistrates, either there or anywhere else.
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