and in its final form it was left at about ten.  Instead of imposing an L8 rental qualification one of L12 was imposed, and by this means were excluded 900,000 voters who would have secured the suffrage under the lower qualification.  Speaking of the Franchise, Mr. Lecky, in “Democracy and Liberty,” declared that—­“The elements of good government must be sought for in Ireland, on a higher electoral plane than in England.”  This is a matter of opinion, and I find it interesting to reflect that the ablest Conservative of my acquaintance—­a Tory of the school of Lord Eldon—­has on several occasions expressed to me a deliberate opinion in exact contradiction of this, to the effect that owing to the relative mental calibres of the races there is need of a higher franchise qualification in England than in either Ireland or Scotland.  Speculations of this kind, however, are unprofitable, seeing that the competency of the Irish peasants as citizens has been acknowledged by the grant of a wide household suffrage safeguarded by a careful system of ballot.

When the last great extension of the franchise to householders in the country was made in 1884 there were those who asserted that its application to Ireland would be folly.  Mr. W.H.  Smith, the leader of the Conservatives in the House of Commons, declared that any extension of the suffrage in Ireland would lead to “confiscation of property, ruin of industry, withdrawal of capital, misery, wretchedness, and war”; the leading Whig statesman said the concession to Ireland of equal electoral privileges with those of England would be folly, but in spite of these gloomy prognostications the omission of Ireland from the scope of the Act was not proposed by Conservative statesmen, and Lord Hartington himself undertook the duty of moving the second reading of a Bill containing provisions which a few weeks before he had described as most unwise.  By this Act the enfranchised inhabitants of Ireland were multiplied more than threefold, and the share of Ireland of the “two million intelligent voters” who were added to the electorate was 200,000.  In the redistribution of seats which accompanied the Franchise Act of 1884 the representation of Ireland was, by an arrangement between parties, left unimpaired, and this leads me to a matter which serves, I think, to show with what speed events move and how true was that remark of Disraeli’s to Lord Lytton that “in politics two years are an eternity.”  It is little more than two years since the burning political question was the redistribution of seats on the lines proposed by Mr. Gerald Balfour.  The Unionist Press has for some years been endeavouring to rouse public opinion on this question of the alleged over-representation of Ireland in the House of Commons, and in view of the share of attention which the matter received in the closing days of the last Parliament it is as well to devote some attention to the topic.