NEWS OF THE WEEK.
Tns two nights of' Parliament this week have brought forth four practical measures. First in importance is the Government bill for amending the Irish Parliamentary franchise. In brief, it assimilates the Irish to the English franchise, not by identical but by analogous laws. It makes the registration more strict, with an administration resembling that of the English Revision Courts, and an appeal to the Irish Exchequer Court instead of the English Court of Com- mon Pleas. The stricter registration is expected to abolish the franchise of about 25,000 out of 40,000 leasehold and freehold occupants ; but, in lieu thereof, the bill creates a new class of tenants-at-will rated to the poor at thirty pounds a year, amount- ing in number to about 51,000, and a class of five-pound free- holders or holders on leases renewable for ever, of a number un- known but presumed to be a-nall. Several objections have been instantly levelled against thimueasure. The Liberals object prin- cipally to the new Irish " Chandos clause" enfranchising tenants- at-will, which, they say, will throw the representation into the power of the landlords; and they condemn the five-pound freehold franchise, as too high compared with the English forty-shilling franchise. The Irish forty-shilling franchise was abolished as a nuisance, and surely its revival would not be recommended ? The other objection is more specious ; yet so different are the relations of' landlord and tenant in Ireland, that no probable result can be deduced from the experience in England. It is difficult to suppose that Irish landlords could have or exercise more oppressive coer- cion of tenants than they do already, or that any general class of Irish tenantry can be so very easily subdued. Other objections conic front the opposite side. The 25,000 spurious voters remain on the list for the remainder of the eight years to which they arc entitled ; an indulgence, however, which deprives the bill of any harsh cha- racter, while it entails no very shocking evil, for probably the spurious are really as good as the genuine voters. But the arrange- ment paves the way for a future Irish grievance, when the 25,000 voters shall politically expire ; for then the franchise will be curtailed to that extent, and the anticipatory compensation of new voters being quite forgotten, loud will be the cry against the destructive law. On the whole, the measure may be considered to improve the system of registration, as abolishing the bad habit of a constituency existing to a great extent by a connivance in fraud ; and to assimilate Irish to English law, thus abolishing an inequality : but, unluckily, it imitates for Ireland no very perfect specimen of English privileges. Since the Irish franchise was to be thoroughly remodelled, it seems a pity not to have made it as good as possible, instead of imitating the faults as well as advantages of the English system. As a stroke of policy, the measure constitutes a most .complete abandonment of Lord STANLEY'S recorded views and the Tory Opposition tactics : it implies the confession that his re- gistration bill was a wholesale disfranchising measure; it adopts the poor-rate test which he condemned. In short, Lord amt. is sub- stituted for Lord STANLEY; an " inconsistency " which, on general grounds, must be regarded as a merit and not a fault.
The next measure is a bill to amend the Irish Municipal franchise ; which is likewise assimilated to that of England, with much sitn- plification, and increased facility for the voter.
Mr. GLADSTONE has introduced a bill which seems, from his de- scription, to make some needful and useful changes in the law of partnership and joint-stock companies; banking companies excepted, for special reasons.
Lord CAMPBELL has propounded a bill to give convicts in criminal eases a ready appeal, under proper security to prevent evasion of punishment. The improvement is suggested, no doubt, by Mr. O'CONNELL'S case; though Lord CAMPBELL gives token of his innocent singleness of purpose by not making the bill retrospective, but postponing its operation to August next. In the mean time, however, it appears to have been already pressed into the regular Opposition service.
