The Irish Home-rulers raised a debate on Tuesday on the
question whether the principle of cumulative voting should not be applied to Irish municipal elections. They raised it as an instruction to the Committee on the private Bill for granting powers to the Corporation of Belfast, alleging that, although the Catholics numbered half the population, the Corporation was so exclusively Protestant that not one office, small or great, was held by a Roman Catholic. The instruc- tion was supported by Mr. Healy, who said he was willing to apply it to Dublin and South Ireland, where Catholics were in a majority, and it was defended by Mr. Courtney, as advo-
cate of proportional representation. Mr. Gerald Balfour resisted on the sound ground that the evil, which he quite acknowledged, ought not to be dealt with in a private Bill, an argument which brought down on him Mr. Morley, who declared that, after promising to kill Home-rule with kind- ness, he had been captured by the Castle officials and by Orangemen like the Member for South Belfast, and now refused on each occasion as it came up to meet Irish wishes. This Government, which had promised so much, was falling in Ireland into the old rut. We have commented elsewhere on the unfairness of this attack, and have only to record here that the instruction was refused by a majority of 55 (219 to 164).
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