450 



GREAT BRITAIN" AND IRELAND. (THE SESSION OF PARLIAMENT.) 



the members for Westminster since 1868. He 

 was Secretary of the Treasury from 1874 to 

 1877, and then First Lord of the Admiralty 

 until the retirement of the Beaconsfield Cabi- 

 net in 1880. 



Edward Gibson was born in County Meath, 

 Ireland, in 1837, graduated at Trinity College, 

 Dublin, and was called to the Irish bar in 1860. 

 He has been a member of Parliament for Dub- 

 lin University since 1875, and was Attorney- 

 General for Ireland from 1877 to 1880. 



John James Robert Manners, usually called 

 Lord John Manners, is the brother and heir 

 presumptive to the Duke of Rutland. He was 

 born in 1818, and was educated at Eton and 

 Trinity College, Cambridge. He entered Par- 

 liament in 1841 as member for Newark, and 

 has sat for Northern Leicestershire since 1857. 

 He was Chief Commissioner of Works and 

 Public Buildings under Lord Derby in 1852, 

 and again in 1858 and 1859, and from 1866 

 till 1868. He was Postmaster-General from 



1874 till 1880. 



Charles Henry Gordon - Lennox, Duke of 

 Richmond and Gordon, was born in 1818, and 

 was educated at Westminster and at Christ- 

 church, Oxford. As Earl of March he held 

 a commission in the Horse Guards, and he sat 

 in the House of Commons for West Sussex 

 from 1841 until he succeeded to the dukedom 

 in 1861. He was President of the Poor Law 

 Board in 1859, President of the Board of Trade 

 in 1867 and 1868, and Lord President of the 

 Council from 1874 till 1880. 



Edward Stanhope, second son of Earl Stan- 

 hope, was born in 1840, and educated at Har- 

 row and Christchurch, Oxford, becoming a 

 fellow of All Souls' College, and in 1865 a 

 barrister. He entered Parliament in 1874 as 

 member for Mid-Lincolnshire, and held tbe 

 post of Secretary of the Board of Trade from 



1875 till 1878, and then that of Under-Secre- 

 tary for India until the dissolution of Parlia- 

 ment in 1880. 



The Session of Parliament. The second session 

 of 1884 was the beginning of the sixth and last 

 session of the Parliament elected in 1880. The 

 reform question was practically settled by the 

 compromise between the leaders of both par- 

 ties. Before Parliament adjourned for the 

 holidays the franchise bill had been passed by 

 the two houses, and the redistribution bill read 

 a second time in the Commons. Mr. Courtney 

 resigned his post of Parliamentary Secretary of 

 Finance, as a protest against the single-member 

 system. He and the other friends of minority 

 representation made efforts to enlist popular 

 support for the scheme of proportional repre- 

 sentation, yet only thirty-one votes were re- 

 corded for Sir John Lubbock's resolution in 

 favor of this scheme, on March 2. Sir John 

 Hay raised a protest against the dispropor- 

 tionate representation granted to Ireland, and, 

 though many Tories and some of the Whigs 

 sympathized with his sentimant, the compact 

 between the parties was maintained, and his 



amendment rejected by an overwhelming ma- 

 jority. In committee there was a lively dis- 

 cussion of Mr. Bryce's proposal to abolish the 

 representation of the universities, which Sir 

 Charles Dilke, who had charge of the bill, was 

 in favor of personally, and Mr. Gladstone also, 

 as was inferred from his reserve on the sub- 

 ject; yet only independent Radicals and Par- 

 nellites supported the motion. The schedules 

 defining the names and boundaries were de- 

 bated for more than a month, though no im- 

 portant alterations were made. Mr. Raikes 

 succeeded in getting the perpetual penalties 

 imposed on voters of corrupt constituencies 

 reduced, while Prof. Thorold Rogers was un- 

 successful in his effort to have persons con- 

 victed of corruption disqualified as parliament- 

 ary candidates. On the llth of May the bill 

 was read a third time, and sent to the House 

 of Lords, where it passed through its stages 

 rapidly, but had not reached a third reading 

 when the ministerial crisis supervened. On 

 the registration bills, which were framed sepa- 

 rately for each of the three kingdoms, serious 

 dissensions arose. An amendment admitting 

 resident members of universities to the fran- 

 chise was carried against the Government. 

 The exclusion of undergraduates in England 

 was subsequently agreed to ; but the Lords 

 reversed this decision. A more important sub- 

 ject of controversy came up, upon which strong 

 feeling was aroused throughout the country. 

 In the original bills, persons who had received 

 charitable relief within the year were excluded 

 from the registers. When the Irish bill was 

 under consideration the disability of recipients 

 of medical relief was removed by a considerable 

 majority. Mr. Davey proposed an amendment 

 to the English bill to the same effect ; but the 

 Government resisted the change, and it was 

 negatived by a vote of 170 to 102. On the 

 report Mr. Davey brought up the question 

 again, and carried through his motion by 87 

 votes against 50. The House of Lords struck 

 it out, though the ministers were now in favor 

 of the alteration, and when the bill returned 

 to the House of Commons Sir Henry James, 

 the Attorney-General, abandoned the position 

 last taken by the ministry, and again opposed 

 the amendment, which was lost by a majority 

 of 107 against 66. 



An amendment to the Irish bill requiring the 

 expenses of the new registration to be defrayed 

 by the Exchequer, and not made a charge upon 

 local taxation, was carried by a small majority. 

 Sir Massey Lopes proposed the same change in 

 the English bill, and finally Mr. Gladstone con 

 promised the matter by considerably augment- 

 ing the grant in aid from imperial funds origi- 

 nally proposed. The three registration b 

 were signed May 21. 



The energies of Parliament were exhausted, 

 the parties demoralized, and politicians carel( 

 of all public business that could not be turne 

 to electioneering account when the ministeri! 

 crisis and change of Government occurred. 



