iples already adopted for
England. This amendment, unwillingly moved by Peel, was defeated by a
majority of forty-one, and the Irish municipal bill was introduced on
the 16th. Like its English prototype, it was founded on the report of a
commission which had disclosed the grossest possible abuses in Irish
municipalities, chiefly dominated by protestant oligarchies. A similar
measure substituting elective councils for these corrupt bodies had
actually passed its third reading in the commons before the end of the
last session, but the attempt to carry it further was then abandoned.
The debates on the bill of 1836 for the same purpose inevitably turned
on broad issues which continued to disturb Irish politics and to perplex
English statesmen for the rest of the century. On the one hand, no one
could justify "government by ascendency" in Ireland, or the shameful
malpractices incident to an exercise of power under no sense of
responsibility. On the other hand, no one acquainted with Irish history
and Irish character could honestly regard the people as yet qualified
for local self-government. In the social and some of the moral virtues
they might be favourably compared with Englishmen and Scotchmen; in the
political virtues, upon which civil institutions must rest, they were
several generations behind their fellow-subjects in Great Britain.

[Pageheading: _IRISH BILLS._]

All were agreed on the necessity of sweeping away or expurgating the
existing Irish corporations, but the whole strength of the conservative
party in both houses was enlisted against the experiment of elective
town councils, especially after the evidence lately taken before the
so-called "intimidation committee" in the house of commons. Peel's
scheme was to vest the executive powers and property of Irish
corporations, at least for the present, in officers appointed by the
crown. An amendment framed in this sense was defeated by a large
majority, and the bill passed the commons with little further
opposition. When it reached the lords it was stoutly contested by
Lyndhurst, now fortified by Peel's concurrence, on the not unreasonable
ground that it would make the radicals and repealers predominant in
every Irish municipality, and create "seats of agitation" for
revolutionary purposes in the new town councils. Being converted into a
bill "for the abolition of municipal corporations" in Ireland, it was
returned in that form to the house of commons. Russell vain