that
the occupation of a tenement rated at the net annual value of eight
pounds for six months should confer the qualification in question. It
was proposed to retain this last franchise in the present measure; and
the only material difference between the present and the former bill
consisted in a provision which was now made for the eventual adoption
of the English franchise. Lord Morpeth proposed that in whatever town,
otherwise competent to receive such institutions, the poor-law act
should have been in operation for three years, all persons resident for
that period, and rated to any amount, should be entitled to vote for the
election of municipal officers. The whole of schedule A, containing the
towns in which corporations were to be established, remained the same;
but with regard to schedule B, which enumerated those towns to which
municipal institutions might be granted on petition of the inhabitants,
it was proposed that, without the signatures of an absolute majority,
the crown might establish corporations in those places as well as in
any other town of three thousand inhabitants, in which there might be
a number of persons occupying premises at not less than L4 per annum,
sufficient to make up a constituency. On the second reading of the bill
it met with a stern opposition of the conservative party; but it was
eventually carried through by the small majority of twenty-six. The bill
was committed _pro-forma_ on the 19th of April; but many delays took
place in order that thirty-four clauses, which should have made part of
the original measure, should be included. On the 4th of July, however,
the house went into committee upon clause twenty, which referred to the
value of the franchise. An attempt was made by Mr. Shaw to introduce a
L10 qualification, which had been the ultimatum of the Conservatives
in the last session: but after a short debate the original question was
carried by one hundred and fifty-four against fifty-four. Some other
minor amendments were subsequently proposed, but they were negatived;
and the bill was finally carried in the commons by a majority of
ninety-seven against seventy-six.

On the 22nd of July, the Irish Municipal Corporations bill was read a
second time in the house of lords. On the 25th of July, before the house
went into committee, Lord Lyndhurst gave notice of the amendments which
he intended to move in the course of the evening, and of his intention
to vote against the third rea