land from the time of the Reformation. The present, however, was the most formidable shape in which it had yet manifested itself. In every large workshop throughout the Kingdom where Irish Roman Catholics were employed there were either avowed Fenians or sympathizers with Fenianism, ready to commit any outrages which persons in their position were capable of devising and taking part in. The Government must know this well, for within the last twelve months they had under their eyes the fires which had taken place on the banks of the Thames. If his Motion were granted he would undertake to show before the Committee what the facts really were, and the views on the subject entertained by the insurance offices. ["Oh, oh!"] In bringing forward subjects of this nature he had great difficulties to contend with from the inadequacy of his own ability, and it was unfair of hon. Gentlemen to in-crease those difficulties. He had no wish to be an alarmist, but for some years past the influx of Roman Catholic soldiers into the army had concentrated itself in a remarkable degree upon the artillery, a branch of the service which the late Duke of Wellington, before the days when Roman Catholic chaplains were appointed, declared ought never, under any circumstances, to bear a divided allegiance. The artillery had contributed a great number of men to be tried as avowed Fenians, and he believed that four-fifths of their number were Roman Catholics. In the police force, too, there was a large number of Roman Catholics; for Sir Richard Mayne had stated that he was far too liberal to inquire into the religious opinions of candidates for admission into that service. Of course he could only assent to the liberality, but to him it seemed exceedingly unwise that such a vast stake should be intrusted in times like the present to the keeping of men of whose sentiments nothing was known, and he believed that if a Committee were granted he would be able to prove that Romanism and Fenianism were coincident. Much information reached him upon questions of this nature, which was not communicated to other hon. Gentlemen, and he happened to know that of the great railway companies having their centres in this metropolis, two of the largest were entirely under the control of gentlemen professing the Roman Catholic religion. The telegraph office was likewise to a certain extent under the control of Roman Catholics. If, then, these Roman Catholics

in the workshops, in the army, in the police, in the railways, and in the telegraphs, were really Roman Catholics-not like the Roman Catholics one saw in the House of Commons, or met in society, but men really and in earnest attached to the faith they professed-there could be no doubt that they could at any time be called on either to give up their faith, or put in exercise the power in their hands, to the utter destruction of every interest under their control or command. The question, then, was whether Fenianism was or was not of Roman Catholic origin, whether it was originated by the priesthood for their own purposes, whether we now had only temporary peace, whether Fenianism was now being bought off by a system of almost daily concessions which the Government were accumulating on the heads of the priests, and whether the danger which we were now in consequence avoiding might not shortly be renewed with increased power? It was incumbent on the Government, not only out of respect to the House, but from consideration for Her Majesty, to give some rational intelligible account of what was the origin of Fenianism, and to state whether it was not in fact a continuation of the Irish disturbances of past days? Would the House permit him to read some passages from an address of the late Sir Robert Peel? Lord Derby, in a debate on the Suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act, clearly identified the Fenian Conspiracy with previous disturbances, with regard to which no one had ever expressed a doubt that they originated with the Roman Catholic priesthood. If the Government chose to make concessions to the Roman Catholics, let them not at the same time sacrifice, on the same altar, the fair fame of the nation. But what said the late Sir Robert Peel? When he brought forward his Bill for the emancipation of the Catholics, did he say, as the hon. Member for Birmingham, that we owed a deep debt of gratitude to the people of Ireland, or that we had oppressed them? No such thing. enumerated the various coercive measures, the various efforts made by Parliament to conciliate Ireland; and then he said, in substance, "this concession is given in the hope that we may at last conciliate that country." But the words with which he concluded his speech on that memorable occasion were worthy the attention of the House and of the nation. He said

He

"I trust that by the means proposed the moral storm may be lulled into a calm, the waters of

Members present appealed to the House and to the hon. Member for Peterborough whether it was not desirable under the circumstances, and considering the length of time that had already been spent, that he should exercise forbearance, and not proceed further with his address.

MR. WHITESIDE said, he would mention one fact to the hon. Gentlemannamely, that the papers on this subject were being printed, and he expected they would shortly be delivered to hon. Members.

MR. WHALLEY said, he felt he had discharged his duty in the course he had pursued, and after the appeal which had been made to him from the Chair, he had nothing further to say. He would not have gone through the subject were it not that a distinct charge had been made against him by the hon. Member for Cashel, who said that he (Mr. Whalley) had made statements which he was not prepared to justify. He had endeavoured to discharge his duty to the best of his ability, and was but too happy to be relieved from making any further statements.

Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

Committee deferred till Monday next.

REPRESENTATION OF THE PEOPLE BILL, [BILL 68.] AND RE-DISTRIBUTION OF SEATS BILL [BILL 138.]

(Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, Sir George Grey, Mr. Villiers.)

COMMITTEE. ADJOURNED DEBATE.

of the Bill for the Re-distribution of Seats, and when I saw the hon. and learned Attorney General rise to address the House I thought that although I might, perhaps, not agree with the opinions which he might announce, yet, at all events, I should hear the principle stated in words as to which there could be no mistake. I must own that in this I was somewhat disappointed. The Attorney General, following the speech of my right hon. Friend (Mr. Lowe)-a speech which it will take much more than the lapse of one night to efface from our memories; a speech which was devoted in great part to a comment upon the Bill for the Re-distribution of Seats-the Attorney General, answering that speech, did indeed at the commencement of his observations refer to the Bill. He said that he would not argue the question upon details, but that he would contend for the principle of the Bill. "At last," I thought "we are going to have the principle;" but the Attorney General only said that the principle of the Bill was its adherence to the old methods and landmarks of the Constitution. Then, he said as to details, that he intended to represent to the Government some results of the Bill with which his constituents at Richmond were dissatisfied; and having given that statement of the principle and this comment on the details of the Bill, he left the entire subject. Well, we must take what we have got, and I shall endeavour to find out if I can whether the Bill does adhere to the old methods and constitutional landmarks.

ment was,

To leave out from the word "That" to the

end of the Question, in order to add the words "this House, while ready to consider the general subject of a Re-distribution of Seats, is of opinion that the system of grouping proposed by Her Majesty's Government is neither convenient nor equitable, and that the scheme is otherwise not sufficiently matured to form the basis of a satisfactory measure,"-(Captain Hayter,) -instead thereof.

Question again proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."

Debate resumed.

SIR HUGH CAIRNS: Like my right hon. Friend the Member for Calne, I also desired to discover if I could the principle

VOL. CLXXXIII. [THIRD SERIES.]

Parliament has never grouped the Scotch boroughs. The Solicitor General the other night spoke in ignorance upon this subject, and attributed this grouping to the Reform Bill. Not at all. We got the Scotch boroughs grouped at the time of the Union; and if any one will take the trouble of referring to the Act of Union, he will find that it recites a Scotch Act of Parliament,

which handed over to us the boroughs of remained substantially to the present day. Scotland in the groups in which they have

say

I substantially because one alteration has been made. As towns such as Glasgow, Greenock, Perth, Dundee, and Aberdeen increased in size-they have been extricated from the groups to which they ori

3 I

ginally belonged, and that explains a circumstance at which the Chancellor of the Duchy expressed his surprise last night namely, that close by Glasgow there are certain represented boroughs which have not been incorporated with that city, but belong to other groups. Now, for what purpose was it that the Legislature of Scotland grouped these boroughs? The grouping took place more than a century and a half ago, at a time when the boroughs were small and few in number, and the difficulty was to secure a borough representation. Having regard to the condition of the country, there were no other means of securing the representation of boroughs. Then take the case of Wales. The boroughs in Wales have been grouped for something like 300 years, and have continued in that state to the present day, with the exception of an unsubstantial alteration at the time of the Reform Bill, when a few additional districts were thrown in. Now for what purpose were these boroughs grouped? The object again was to secure a borough representation, because there could not have been such a representation at that time in Wales, except by aggregating the towns which formed these groups. Then what have we in England with respect to the grouping of boroughs? I know of nothing but two examples which occurred at the time of the Reform Bill, which may fairly be called grouping. I refer to the case of Penryn and Falmouth, Falmouth being added to Penryn, which was previously a represented borough; and to the case of Sandwich, to which Walmer and Deal were added at the time of the Reform Bill. There, again, the object was to secure and preserve borough representation, so that Penryn and Sandwich might be made large enough, by the addition of other places, to retain their position as represented boroughs. This, then, having always been the object of borough grouping in Scotland, Wales, and England, observe the three different modes of grouping which are practicable. You may group unrepresented boroughs together. You may take a represented borough and add to its area some adjacent borough which is not represented. Or, thirdly, you may take represented boroughs and group them together. The difference between these three operations is this:-In the first and second case it is an operation with which our Constitution is familiar, and which has been resorted to in order to preserve the

borough representation; but in the third case, which is that adopted by the Bill of the Government, you group boroughs in order to destroy their representation. Taking, therefore, the test of the Attorney General, who tells us that the principle of the Bill is adherence to the landmarks of the Constitution, I find that under the name of grouping an operation is performed, which is exactly at variance with all the constitutional landmarks that we possess upon this subject.

I say, then, that the system of grouping adopted in this Bill in reality means disfranchisement, that it is new in principle, and is vicious in effect. I think I have proved that it is new; and I own that I was surprised to hear anybody deny that it means disfranchisement. The Solicitor General, however, says that it is not and cannot be disfranchisement, because these places are afterwards represented in the groups to which they are joined. Now, the test of disfranchisement is not that electors afterwards have an opportunity of voting as a part of some other constituency. If you disfranchise a borough altogether, it is represented in the county to which it belongs, and the votes of all or of many who voted for the borough are afterwards given for the county. But the test of disfranchisement is this-Do you destroy the political existence and identity of the constituency? Of course, if the question were the disfranchisement of an elector, it would be an answer to say that he retained his vote, and could afterwards exercise it in another place; but in the case of a constituency you disfranchise altogether, when you destroy its identity and its life. Well, then, I say that the proposal of the Government is not only disfranchisement in reality, but it is vicious in effect. First, let me take the question of the expense of elections. I am not going to compare the expense which would attend the representation of one of these groups with the expense of a county contest. That is not a fair subject of comparison. The representation of one of these groups must be compared in respect of expense with the representation of a borough of about the same size as the united population of the group, and I undertake to say that the expense of contesting one of these groups will be three or four-fold the expense of contesting a single borough of the same size. I will tell you why. All these boroughs have their traditions; they have what I may call