IRELAND.—The Act of Union made no alteration in the parliamentary suffrage of the Irish counties. The qualification of a freeholder remained the same as be fore, a clear annual forty-shilling interest for a life ; and as it was customary in Ireland to grant leases on lives, free holders were thus created whose votes, from their extreme poverty, and conse quent inability to discharge their legal obligations to their landlord, were dis posable by him as a matter of course. This practice of multiplying freeholds for election purposes merely was carried to an excessive and most mischievous ex tent, reducing the franchise almost to universal suffrage, among individuals who, by the very instrument by which they were professedly made free, were reduced to the most abject state of poli tical bondage. Thus many of the coun ties, in choosing their representatives, lay under the absolute dictation of some great territorial proprietor ; and there were few in which a coalition of two or three of the principal landowners would not deter mine the election according to their own wishes. Under these circumstances, the provision of the Catholic Emancipation Act of 1829, which raised the freehold qualification in the counties of Ireland from 40s. to 10/., can hardly be regarded as a virtual disfranchisement.
The whole civil organization of Ireland having been introduced directly from England, and the system of tenures in particular being the same in both coun tries, the provisions of the Irish Reform Act which have reference to the terri torial franchise are more strictly analo gous to those of the act for England than those of the Scottish act could well be made, at least in appearance. The exist
ing freehold rights being preserved here, as in the other two divisions of the em pire, to their individual possessors, and the 10/. freehold franchise being already established by the above-mentioned pro vision of the act of 1829, the classes of electors newly created are-1, the 10/. copyholders ; 2, lessees or assignees bay ing a clear yearly interest of 10/. in a leasehold created originally for 60 years or upwards, or of 20/. in a leasehold of not less than 14 years, whether in their actual occupancy or not ; 3, sub-lessees or assignees of any under-lease in either of the two cases just mentioned, actually occupying ; 4, the immediate lessees or assignees, and they only, having a 101. yearly interest in a 20l. lease, and actu ally occupying. The like provision is made as in the English act, against any title to the county franchise being derived from any holding whatever that would entitle to vote for a city or borough.