264 ON THE STATE OF IRELAND. [BOOK III, 



REMARKS. 



The Commissioners could propose nothing more 

 wise than this fiscal committee, to be instituted in 

 each district. But it is well to remark, that the 

 Commissioners all belong to that Whig party, which, 

 in order to come into power, has never spoken but 

 of elections and public discussions. But once in 

 power and at work, they soon shake off their first 

 error, and propose as members of the committee 

 certain magistrates, who, we may observe, are all 

 appointed by the king, but always selected from 

 amongst the landowners resident in the district. 

 As soon as this majority is ensured, they pro- 

 pose that the other members of the committee 

 should be chosen ; but for this election they recom- 

 mend no public assembly of electors. A printed 

 sheet is to be left at the residences of those who 

 have the right of voting, and there, in the si- 

 lence of the closet, they have to write down their 

 vote. To save the electors the trouble of going to 

 a fixed place, or rather to avoid their assembling, 

 the collector of the votes has to go and receive the 

 printed paper at the residence of each elector. This 

 mode of election seems to us to differ widely from 

 the system on which the same Whigs have brought 

 about Parliamentary reform. 



