THE DEBATE ON IRISH BOROUGH SUFFRAGE. T HE radical vice in
the Tory treatment of Irish questions is that the Tories profess to hold one theory, and then act upon another. They all say that Ireland is a part of the United Kingdom, and all treat her as if she were a depend- ency of Great Britain. Or rather, they treat her now as a dependency, and now, as an integral portion of the realm, till their action becomes weak and confused, and Irishmen feel the sort of indignation and sense of injustice which inspire all men who are allowed a privi- lege, and then forbidden to enjoy it. There is absolutely no reason for refusing to Irish boroughs the English borough suffrage which would not justify the government of Ireland from above, as we govern India, by responsible and specially- trained agents. If Ireland is unfit for representative govern- ment, that might be a wise policy, as it certainly would be a clear and definite one ; but to agree that the Island shall have representative government on the same plan as England and Scotland, and then insist that she shall have a different franchise, is simply to refuse in prac- tice the equality conceded in theory, and to refuse it on distinctly insulting grounds. Every Irishman who in England would vote, and in Ireland is refused a vote, is told plainly that the Legislature holds him inferior to an Englishman or Scotchman of his own grade. In England and Scotland, we say all householders,—that is, practically, all married men—are good enough to be trusted with a vote. In Ireland, we say they are not good enough unless they live in houses valued at £4 a year,—equivalent, as Irish Members affirm, from peculiarities in the local system of rating, to a £6 rental in England. Where is the equality, after such a distinction as that has been established ? We say in England and Scotland that so long as a man has a house, we will not consider his poverty, or his social posi- tion, or even his possible ignorance, but will trust him with the franchise ; but in Ireland we say that unless he has a certain amount of means, and a certain position, and a certain amount of knowledge, all to be proved by his rental, he shall not be trusted. The Irishman is, in fact, treated as a lower being altogether, against whom barriers must be raised, such barriers that there axe fewer borough electors in all Ireland than in Manchester alone, and that the thirty-seven borough Members for Ireland are sent up by a select caste of 57,000 persons. The Members, in fact, are not elected by the population at all, but by a class of it,—which may be wise, but which is a system of representation we repudiate both for England and Scotland. Mr. Lowther himself, while defending the existing law, admits its injustice, for he allows that the system must be changed, and only pleads that when changed the distribution of seats must be thoroughly altered as well as the suffrage. Why ? It was not seriously changed in Scotland, when the great reduction of 1867 was effected. Mr. Disraeli accepted household suffrage without a word about redistribu- tion. It may be most unjust, we think it is unjust, that Portarlington should have half the representation of Dublin ; but Mr. Lowther is not going to abolish Portarlington, and if Portarlington is to continue, it is only fair that the true electors of Portarlington, acknowledged to be so in all Scotch and English boroughs, should be placed in possession of their rights. At present, they are branded as the inferiors of Englishmen. Oh says Mr. Lewis, in a speech which is best described as an elaborate invective against the poorer Irish, these men, whom you would admit to the franchise, are unworthy. Some of them live in mud cabins. All of them are liable to be beguiled by agitators. Most of them are seditious, and buy papers in which songs are published exalting in English defeats. Would Mr. Lewis refuse the vote to Highlanders, because they live in mud cabins without chimneys, or does he really believe that a certain amount of poverty, which is no disqualification in England and Scotland, is a proof in Ireland of inherent incapacity for the vote If his argument has anything in it, it is an argument for a property qualification, not for a property qualification in Ireland only. As to the liability to be beguiled by agitators, what protection is there against that in Stoke-upon- Trent, or, for that matter, in all Lancashire, which unanimously elects Lord Beaconsfield to the head of affairs? Recent events have certainly not shown pro- perty to be much protection against delusion by demagogues, agitators, and charlatans. No doubt, in Ireland a plevalent illusion is apt to be an anti-English illusion ; but Mr. Lewis himself admits it is seldom deep, for one of his charges against the popular newspapers is that they abuse an Army in which their own countrymen form a large proportion. That is quite true, and quite sufficient proof that Irishmen are not the enemies of Great Britain. But they are seditious, he says. Well, the most seditious place in England in 1831 was Birmingham. It was almost in open revolt,—much nearer it than any Irish borough now is ; and its special demand was the franchise, which Mr. Lewis, on his own principle, would have refused. Wiser men than he granted it, instead ; and to-morrow, if the Prince of Wales visited the borough, all Birmingham would be in a fever of loyalty to the Royal Family. Men are not made loyal by telling them they are unworthy of privileges or rights which their comrades possess, or by refusing them all constitutional methods of stating their mistaken views. Does Mr. Lewis imagine that people in Ireland will beat process-servers the harder, because they possess legal methods of altering the law which allows of process-servers ? Or does he think that he best exposes the fallacy of the cry for Home-rule by refusing a law already passed in England, and which an Irish Parliament would pass instantly ?
But, pursues Mr. Lewis, these constituencies, thus rein- forced, will at once expel all Tories, and ultimately all Pro- testants, and that is extreme injustice. No doubt it is, and for that reason we have always fought for the minority-clause ; but then that is exactly what we do in England and Scotland. In England, with its large Catholic population, we have not one Catholic Member, and it is doubtful if one could be elected ; and in Scotland, it is quite possible that at the next election not one nominal Tory will be returned. Is Mr. Lewis, upon that ground, prepared to disfranchise English and Scotch householders, or does he claim for Tories and Protestants a right divine of election which he refuses to Catholics and Liberals ? As a matter of fact, we suspect plenty of Tories will get in for Irish boroughs, though their language about their countrymen will differ from Mr. Lewis's ; and History shows that Protestants are in no danger at all. The most remarkable fact we know of about Ireland, which is supposed to be so ultra-Catholic, is, that a Catholic has no particular advantage at the polls, and that the most trusted leaders of the Catholic population have very often been Protestants. Emmett was a Protestant, and so was Lord E. Fitzgerald, and so were O'Brien and Mitchell and Mr. Butt, and so to-day is Mr. Parnell. Another agitator, we believe, has been both, while still a Member, and his change has had no influence on his seat. The Irish, like every other people with a past history of oppression, love agitators a great deal too well, so well that if a man is but an agitator, they never ask a question about his faith, and very often, we suspect, are at heart delighted to believe that the priesthood has no hold upon him. They are like some constituencies in Austria, which prefer Jews, because their liberalism will not be influenced even in thought by the creed which, nevertheless, the electors 1think essential for themselves. The true reason, and the only reason, why the equality of franchise is refused to Ireland is the lingering belief that caste ascendancy is essential to the good government of the Island, and that the masses will be made less responsible by the electoral power. Those ideas are, we believe, just as true of Ireland as they are of England and Scotland; that is to say, they are partly true, but cannot, in presence of the argu- ments on the other side, be allowed any weight.
Previous page
