1837.] First Reformed Parliament to Death of William IV. 273 Tory publication, expressed this view without disguise. Speaking of the Irish Municipal Bill, it said that ministers, on introducing it, "could not be ignorant that in the House of Commons they would have to contend with a large minority, and in the House of Lords with a large majority, which, unless acted upon by some universal exterior excite- ment, would never consent that such a bill should pass. . . . But although the calls were loud, no spirit came. The people of Britain could not be roused to aid a system of exclusive popery, and Parliament was left to exercise its undisturbed reason on a great political question." ' Parliament met on the I4th of February, and in the King's speech was a clause relating to this subject of Irish muni- cipalities, expressing a hope that it might be settled upon the same principles as those of the Acts already passed for England and Scotland. Exception to this was at once taken by the Conservatives, and an amendment to the address object- ing to it was carried in the Lords and lost in the Commons. When the bill was introduced, the opposition to it was founded upon the fact, that if the municipal suffrage was extended, as the measure proposed, in the large boroughs to the 10 house- holders, and in the smaller towns to the $ householders, the majority of electors would be Roman Catholics ; and because the Irish people did not hold the same religious opinions as their English fellow-subjects, they were to be denied all the rights and privileges of self-government. The bill was read a second time in the House of Commons on the 29th of February, and passed on the 28th of March by a majority of sixty-one. In the House of Lords it was read a second time on the i8th of April, and was then entirely altered in committee all the clauses conferring popular franchises being struck out, and a system of patronage and life-tenure of offices inserted. The bill as altered was on the 1 9th of May sent down to the Commons, where ministers proposed a compromise, accepting some alterations and re- jecting others. The Peers, however, refused any arrangement
- "Annual Register," 1836, p. 32.
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