CIIAP. VI.] SIR L. PARSONS' MOTION.

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that Ireland should go in the war against France. Mr. Grattan took a different view of the question from some of his friends, as he did at a subsequent period in 1815, and thus expressed himself:

"With respect to the principle of conduct which should always actuate Ireland, I have ever had, and shall ever continue to have but one opinion,-that Ireland should improve her Constitution, correct its abuses, and assimilate it as nearly as possible to that of Great Britain; that whenever Administration should attempt to act unconstitutionally; but above all, whenever they should tamper with the independence of Parliament, they ought to be checked by all the means that the Constitution justifies. But that these measures, and this general plan of conduct should be pursued by Ireland with a fixed, steady, and unalterable resolution to stand or fall with Great Britain. Whenever Great Britain, therefore, should be clearly involved in war, it is my idea that Ireland should grant her a decided and unequivocal support, except that war should be carried on against her own liberty."

On the 5th of January, Sir Lawrence Parsons moved that copies of the conventions and treaties with the different powers relative to the war, should be laid before the House. His motion was supported by Serjeant Duquery, Doctor Browne, Messrs. Tighe, Curran, Egan, and Stewart (Lord Castlereagh). Mr. Grattan opposed this motion, conceiving it tantamount to telling France that Ireland had not made up her mind as to the war, and inducing her to intrigue with the people, and make a descent upon the country. Mr. Grattan added, that on the subject of the war, Mr. Curran's sentiments coincided with his own. The motion was rejected by 128 to 9.*

The Bill of Reform that had been proposed by Mr.Wm. Ponsonby, in the last session, was read a first time on the 4th of March. It added thirty

*Colonel Arthur Wesley (Duke of Wellington) was

tellers on this division.

one of the

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MR. PONSONBY'S REFORM BILL. [CHAP. VI. four Members to the representation, and enlarged the boroughs to an area of twenty-four miles in circumference, thereby taking them from the aristocracy, and opening them to the people. Unfortunately, however, this useful and necessary measure was not destined to pass. Arguments against it were adduced from the disturbed state of affairs abroad, and from the danger of giving more power to the people. Accordingly, the Bill was opposed by Sir Hercules Langrishe, who moved that it be read a second time on the 1st of August. The amendment was supported by Mr. (afterwards Sir Jonah) Barrington, Mr. Fox (afterwards Judge Fox), and Sir John Parnell, Chancellor of the Exchequer. It was opposed by Curran, Jephson, Tighe, Browne, Parsons, Ponsonby, and Conolly. Mr. Grattan strongly supported the bill. He said, that freeholders, leaseholders, and all trading interests, were now only spectators of the parliamentary Constitution, but under this bill they would become parties; at present they returned only one-fifth of the House, but by the bill* they would have the entire return,

* Each county was to return three instead of two knights of the shire; cities of Dublin and Cork to return three members each.

Districts of cities and borough towns to be enlarged to a radius of four miles, or a circle of about twenty-four miles in circumference.

£10 freeholders within such district of any city, town or borough to have a vote, provided they held their freeholds for one year, and registered six months previous to election.

No freeman of any corporation elected such after passing this Act to have a right to vote unless seised of a freehold of 57. yearly value, on which he or his family shall have resided for one year previous to election; this not to extend to those who are freemen or have a right to be so previous to the Act.

Every person who has served five years at any trade within the districts shall have a right to vote.

Member before he takes his seat in Parliament shall declare on oath that it has not been procured by bribery of any kind.

Act not to extend to cities of Waterford, Kilkenny, Limerick and Londonderry, they shall retain their rights as usual.

This was a much wiser plan of Reform than that adopted in England in 1831 by Lord Grey and Lord John Russell, which was so clogged by forms of registry, payment of rates and taxes, and tenancies at will, that the beneficial result of the measure was in a great degree frustrated.

CHAP. VI.] MR. GRATTAN SUPPORTS IT.

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His speech was re

and become proprietors. markable for its comments on the British Constitution, on the proceedings in France, and the danger of suffering popular abuses to accumulate to such a height as they had in Ireland; but he very wisely expressed his disapprobation of the plan of personal representation, and the extravagancies which some of the popular societies in Ireland had indulged in, and which he cautioned the people to beware of.

"My right honourable friend* says, Why agitate the people now? We have not created; we have found the agitation of this subject, and therefore the question now is, not whether we shall agitate or abandon this subject; and sure I am that we should agitate the people much more by renouncing than by pursuing their great objecta more equal representation of the people. We should then leave them at large on this subject to their own despair, or to those desperate suggestions which every seditious bungler may propose, while the abuses of your representation, abandoned to such hands, make every quack a doctor, and every fool a philosopher. Sir, it is the excellence of our constitution, that it contains within itself the seeds of its own reformation, and to this excellence I attribute its duration. Other countries have preserved abuses until they accumulated, and were finally levelled but by the establishment themselves, by the deluge of anarchy, instead of being removed by reformation.

*

*

"But,' says the right honourable baronet, France! take warning from France.' If France be a lesson, take the whole of that lesson; if her frantic convention is to be a monitress against the vices of a republic, let the causes which produced that convention be an admonition against the abuses of monarchy. France would reform nothing, until abuses accumulated, and government was swept away in a deluge-until an armed force redressed the State, and then, as will generally be the case, united on becoming the Government. It was not a progress from reformation to innovation, but from one modification of a military government, that is, of one anarchy to another. *Sir Hercules Langrishe.

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MR. GRATTAN'S SPEECH

[CHAP. VI.

In principle, therefore, the case of France does not apply; in policy, still less; for sure I am that if there is an attempt to introduce the rebellious traces of a republic into these countries, the best precaution is to discountenance them by the sober attractions of a limited monarchy, and the worst precaution is, to preserve all the abuses of the latter, to pre-engage men against the vices of the former.

*

*

"Liberty was not best defended as the Commons became an aristocratic power, but as aristocratic wealth and feudal principality were alienated, melted, and diffused among the Commons: not as the Commons ceased to be Commons, but as great men became Commons by alienation, and small men became such by commerce; as the Commons grew in wealth, the better to combat that aristocratic influence, and not as they themselves became a part of that influence, and ceased to be Commons. To the aristocratic power which the patron of abuse would set up as the bulwark of freedom, must we attribute the fall of freedom and the catastrophe of kings. To this must we attribute the Barons' war and five depositions, and to the diminution of that power are we to attribute the Bill of Rights and the Revolution, both carried in the Commons against the alterations and interpolations attempted by this aristocratical interposition and influence. It is true, though the power of the baron is gone, the influence of the borough patron remains; and therefore, though there is no civil war, there will continue to be faction. For wherever the powers of the constitution fall into the hands of an oligarchy, the Crown and the people must alternately capitulate; the one for his freedom, the other for his prerogative; and if I were to come to any general conclusion on this part of the subject, it would be, that the disturbance of government has been the effect of this prevalence of oligarchy, and the freedom of the people the effect of its decline. Worse even than the abuses so defended, is a plan I have seen for their reformation-personal or individual representation.

"The principle of such a plan is a complete, avowed, and unqualified departure from the vital and fundamental article of the British constitution in practice and in theory; and I must say, such an outset requires no small degree of mischievous and senseless temerity.

*

Such we have seen in France on a similar experiment. There were two models for those who undertook to reform

CHAP. VI.]

*

ON THE REFORM BILL.

149

the Legislature-the principles of the British constitution, with all its prosperity; the confusions of the French, with all its massacres: deliberately have the authors of the plan of personal representation preferred the latter! Their plan at another time had been only evidence of utter incapacity; at this and with the circumstance of its most active circulation, it is a proof of the worst intentions their plan is an elementary French constitution; as such I would resist it; as such, as long as there is spirit or common sense in the kingdom, we will all and for ever resist it; but though the perpetration of the design you may defy, the mischief of the attempt you must acknowledge. It has thrown back for the present the chance of any rational improvement in the representation of the people, and has betrayed a good reform to the hopes of a shabby insurrection. There are two characters equally enemies to the reform of Parliament and equally enemies to the government-the leveller of the constitution, and the friend of its abuses: they take different roads to arrive at the same end; the levellers propose to subvert the King and parliamentary constitution by a rank and unqualified democracy; the friends of its abuses propose to support the King and level the Parliament, and in the end to overset both by a rank and avowed corruption. They are both incendiaries; the one would destroy government to pay his court to liberty, the other would destroy liberty to pay his court to government; but the liberty of the one would be confusion, and the government of the other would be pollution. Thus these opposite and bad characters would meet at last on the ground of their common mischiefs-the ruins of the best regulations that ever distinguished human wisdomthose that limit the power of the Crown, and those that restrain the impetuosity of the people. *

*

"See how the constitution, by borough, and not representation, worked previous to the Revolution: it scarcely worked at all. Of the last century, near eighty-five years, at different intervals, passed without a Parliament. From 1585 to 1612, that is, twenty-seven years, no Parliament; from 1615 to 1634, nineteen years, no Parliament; from 1648 to 1661, thirteen years, no Parliament; from 1666 to 1692, that is, twenty-six, no Parliament. Before the Revolution, it thus appears, that with the rights and the * This was in allusion to the plans of some of the United Irishmen.