1 62 History of the Radical Party in Parliament. [1820- popular support. On the 25th of April Lord John moved in the Commons "That the present state of the representation of the people in Parliament requires the most serious consider- ation of this House." The general plan which he intended to propose was the addition of one hundred members to the House, of which sixty were to be given to counties, and forty to great towns not before enfranchised. In order that the total number of members might not be increased, he proposed to take away one representative from each of the hundred smallest boroughs returning two members. This was an advance on any proposition he had before advocated, but its special weakness was that it did not touch the question of the franchise in any of the existing constituencies, and so would still have left the great bulk of the population unrepresented. On a division, there were 164 for, and 269 against, the pro- posal. This was the largest vote which had been recorded for many years, and its effect was to encourage the reformers to further action. The Catholic question, which was to do so much to affect the fortunes of English political parties, was rapidly approach- ing the stage when further delay became impossible. On the 3Oth of April Canning introduced a bill to enable Roman Catholic peers to sit in the House of Lords. This was not what would be called a very heroic measure, but it served to keep the subject alive, and it gave another opportunity to the Upper House of convincing the Catholics, and the Irish people especially, what was the real seat of the power which oppressed them. The bill was carried through the Commons, but on the 22nd of June it was thrown out in the Lords by a majority of forty- two. The agitation in Ireland was en- couraged not only by the position assumed by the House of Commons, but by the almost unaccountable course taken by the Cabinet in the constitution of the Irish Government. At this very time, when they were using their influence with the Peers to counteract the effect of the votes of the represen- tative chamber, ministers appointed to the Lord-Lieutenancy of Ireland the Marquis of Wellesley, a well-known abolitionist.
