The inquiry into the state of the muni cipal corporations of Ireland, commenced in 1833, was a branch of the general municipal inquiry which naturally fol lowed the passing of the parliamentary Reform Acts. The Irish Commissioners took as the basis of their local investi gations the 117 places which sent re presentatives to the Irish parliament. Their report showed that in Ireland the total inadequacy of the basis of muni cipal constituency was yet more univer sally glaring and more injuriously ope rative than it was in the unreformed system of England. They especially pointed to the excessive abuse of the un limited power of admitting non-residents into the local constituency. In 1747 the political spirit of the time induced the legislature, by statute 21 Geo. II., chap. 10, sec. 8, of the Irish parliament, to dis with residence as a qualification or corporateoffices in all but a very few of the Irish corporations. The effect of this enactment was to deprive a large proportion of the corporations of a resi dent governing body. In some cases, a few, very rarely a majority, of the muni cipal council, were inhabitants of the town ; while in others, the whole char tered body of burgesses became composed of non-residents, some of whom attended, pro forms?, at elections of the corporate officers and of the parliamentary repre sentatives, or on occasion of the disposing of corporate property, though taking no other part in the local government. In addition to so many other fertile sources of perversion, some charters gave a direct control in the corporate elections to the lord of the manor or landed proprietor of the town in which the corporation was established ; while in others, the powers given to a small self-elected body became naturally centred in its most influential member. With few exceptions, the in fluence once acquired by persons of rank or property in the corporations was easily perpetuated by the powers of self-election in the governing councils, until by de grees the corporate bodies became, as many of them had long been, composed almost exclusively of the family or im mediate dependents and nominees of the individual recognised as the " patron," or " proprietor ;" acting solely according to his dictation and for his purposes, in the election of the municipal officers, the administration of the corporate affairs and property, and the returning of the mem bers of parliament for the borough. The influence thus acquired came to be re garded as absolute property, and trans mitted as part of the family inheritance ; in some instances it was made the sub ject of pecuniary purchase ; in some, as in the case of Waterford, partitioned, by agreement, between contending interests ; and when the legislative union between Great Britain and Ireland deprived many of the corporate towns, or rather their patrons or proprietors, of the power of returning members to parliament, this species of property was formally re cognised as a subject of national com pensation.
The Commissioners of Inquiry remark, in relation to the return of members of parliament, that in far the greater num ber of the close corporations the persons composing them were the mere nominees of the " patron " or " proprietor " of the borough: while in those apparently more enlarged they were admitted and asso ciated in support of some particular political interest, most frequently at variance with that of the majority of the resident inhabitants. " This system," they observe, " deserves peculiar notice in reference to your majesty's Roman Ca tholic subjects. In the close boroughs they are almost universally excluded from all corporate privileges. In the more considerable towns they have rarely been admitted :wen as freemen ; and, with few exceptions, they are altogether excluded from the governing bodies. In Some—and among these is the most im portant corporation in Ireland, that of Dublin—their admission is still resisted on avowed principles of sectarian dis tinction. This exclusive spirit, the com
missioners added, operates far more widely and more mischievously than by the mere denial of equal privilege to persons pos sessing perfect equality of civil worth ; for in places where the great mass of the population is Roman Catholic, and per sons of that persuasion are, for all effi cient purposes, excluded from corporate privilege, the necessary result is, that the municipal magistracy belongs entirely to the other religious persuasion ; and the dispensation of local justice and the se lection of juries being committed to the members of one class exclusively, it is not surprising that such administration of the laws should be regarded with dis trust and suspicion by the other and more numerous body.
The evils of the Irish municipal system have been mitigated by the Act for Par liamentary Reform in Ireland, and by an act passed in 1840 (3 & 4 Viet c. 108), "for the regulation of municipal corpo rations in Ireland." The existing cor porations were placed in schedules and dealt with in the following manner. Schedule A contained the following ten Places : Belfast, Clonmel, Cork, Drog heda, Dublin, Kilkenny, Limerick, Lon donderry, Sligo, and Waterford ; which are all continued as corporations, subject to the provisions of the Act, under the title of mayor, aldermen, and burgesses (in Dublin the title of Lord Mayor is retained). Schedule B contained thirty seven places, which were classed in two divisions, namely, those corporations (19) which possessed estates or funds pro ducing not less than 1001. a-year, and those (18) which were not possessed of property to the above amount. All these thirty-seven boroughs were dissolved, but the act provided that any of them which had a population exceeding 3000 might obtain a charter of incorporation similar to that of the charters enjoyed by the ten boroughs in Schedule A, upon petition by a majority of the inhabitant rate-payers to the Queen in council. In the other towns in Schedule B another arrangement was adopted ; in some of these towns commissioners for lighting, cleansing, watching, &c. had been elected under 9 Geo. IV. c. 82, and in this case the corporate property was vested in the commissioners, to be applied by them in aid of the rates levied, and for the pub lic benefit of the inhabitants. The places where the 9 Geo IV. c. 82, had not been adopted, and where, consequently, no commissioners existed, were arranged in two schedules, and in the towns in the first schedule a board of commissioners was to be elected in the proportion of one commissioner for every 500 inhabitants, in whom the corporate property was to be vested, subject to the trust already mentioned ; and in the towns in the second schedule the corporate property was to be vested in the guardians of the poor of the union in which such borough or the larger part of it was situated. But if any of the boroughs in these two schedules elect commissioners under 9 Geo. IV. the corporate property is to be vested in them ; or if they obtain a charter of incorporation, then In the cor poration. Schedule I contained twenty boroughs, the corporations of which were dissolved by the act, and the cor porate property vested in commissioners under 9 Geo. IV., or in the poor-law guardians as already detailed.
The persons qualified to vote for cor porate officers, or for municipal commis sioners in the towns in schedule B, are, each male of full age who on the last day of August in any year is an inhabitant householder, and has been resident for six calendar months preceding within the borough, or within seven statute miles thereof, and who shall occupy any house, warehouse, counting-house, or shop, which, separately or jointly with any land occupied by him therewith as tenant or as owner, shall be of the yearly value of not less than IN. ascertained according to the directions of the act. Several of the provisions of the act re semble the provisions of the English Municipal Reform Act,