Such being the constitution of the Irish House of Lords, some matters of procedure in which it differed from the English House of Peers are noteworthy. The members of both the English and Irish Upper Houses had the privilege of voting by proxy. In England, however, no peer who was not present was empowered to enter a protest on the Journals of the House. In Ireland peers could not only vote but protest by proxy.

In Strafford's Parliament, in 1634, the lords who had proxies were severally introduced, personating those whose proxies they had, and taking their seats according to their relative precedency. "This," says Lord Mountmorres, "is particularly mentioned because the right of protesting by proxy, which is a custom peculiar to the House of Lords of Ireland, seems to depend upon this circumstance, for as they personated those lords, so it seemed to follow that they should act in every respect for their proxies as if they were present, and, among other privileges, had a right to protest.*

A very interesting controversy arose a few years ago between the late Earl Cairns, when Lord Chancellor of England, and the Duke of St. Albans, as to whether the Lord Chancellor of England is ex officio

* "Mountmorres's "Irish Parliament," vol. i. pp. 321, 322. In 1865 Mr. Bagehot wrote, with respect to the House of Lords, "The aboli tion of proxies would have made the House of Lords a real house." "English Constitution," p. 125. In 1868 proxies were abolished by resolution.

Speaker of the House of Lords.* In Ireland the offices of Lord Chancellor and Speaker of the House of Lords, though in practice generally united, were regarded in theory as distinct. Thus, in the first session of Parliament after the Restoration the Primate, Archbishop Bramhall, and not the Lord Chancellor, was Speaker of the House of Lords.† The theoretical severance of the offices is brought prominently before us by the Duke of Rutland, as Viceroy, so late as 1784, wishing to create a Speakership of the House of Lords, with a salary attached, distinct from the Chancellorship.‡

Speaking of the English House of Lords, Lord Brougham says, that, according to the theory of the Constitution," Every English peer on attaining twentyone years, has as much voice on all the great questions which come before the House of Lords, as an ultimate court of appeal, as the Lord High Chancellor himself." Such is the theory of the Constitution, though in practice all is quite different. "The usage," he proceeds to observe, “is, and for a century has been, followed, with a single exception, for all but the law lords to abstain from taking any part, either on questions of appeal from Courts of Equity, or writs of error from Courts of Law, or in cases of peerage claims, which are regarded as questions of

* The correspondence and speeches are summarised by Professor Sheldon Amos: "Fifty Years of the English Constitution," pp. 101, 102. + Mountmorres' "Irish Parliament," vol. i. p. 414.

Froude's "English in Ireland," vol. ii. p. 440.

x

private right."* His Lordship then enumerates some of the difficulties caused by the paucity of law lords in the Upper House, and the contrivances which their absence in his own time rendered necessary.† In Ireland the theory of the Constitution and the practice were the same. This was forcibly illustrated after the repeal of the English statute of 6 Geo. I., which affected to deprive the Irish House of Lords of their appellate jurisdiction, and to reduce them, in the words of Mr. Grattan, "to a fashionable insignificance."‡ Viscount Strangford, Dean of Down, was, in 1784, by a special statute, deprived from sitting in Parliament or making any proxy therein, and also from sitting and voting on the trial of any peer. The offence of this nobleman was that he acted criminally and corruptly in writing, during the pendency of an appeal in the House of Lords, to the father of one of the litigants, asking for £200, "to enable him, by daily appearance, to express his gratitude by doing justice when he flattered himself to see success crown the undertaking." §

* Brougham's "British Constitution," p. 359.

+ Brougham's "British Constitution," pp. 359-363.

Irish Debates," vol. i. p. 335.

§23 and 24 Geo. III. c. 59. The letter is given in full in the preamble of the statute.

x su Act infull k 35

24

12

2

17

CHAPTER II.

THE CONSTITUTION OF THE IRISH HOUSE OF

COMMONS.

THE House of Commons for nearly a century previous to the Union consisted of three hundred members. Addressing that assembly on the question of Reform in 1793, Mr. Grattan thus described in its very presence its history and constitution.

“I will advert to the state of your representation; it is short. Of three hundred members above two hundred are returned by individuals, from forty to fifty are returned by ten persons; several of your boroughs have no resident elector at all; some of them have but one; and, on the whole, two-thirds of the representatives in the House of Commons are returned by less than one hundred persons." "In 1613 the members returned to Parliament were two hundred and thirty-two, since which time sixty-eight members have been added, all by the House of Stuart, one by Anne, four by James II., most of the remainder by Charles I. with a view to religious. distinctions, and by Charles II. with a view to personal favour." "The form of your Constitution was twelve counties, established in the reign of King John. Henry VIII. added one, Mary two, and Elizabeth seventeen, since which time your counties received

no addition whatever, though between the year 1613 and the present the borough interest has received an addition of sixty-eight members, which is more than double the whole county representation.

"The great division on this subject is cities or boroughs, where the grant was to burgesses and freemen indefinite, or to a limited number of burgesses, seldom exceeding twelve, in whom the right of election was confined. The former are boroughs intended to be free; the latter intended to be otherwise. The number of the former I apprehend to be above forty, and when they have become what we understand to be intended by the word 'close boroughs' they have departed from the intention of the grant, and ought, pursuant to the meaning of that grant, to be opened. The other class, which I apprehend to be above forty, are in their origin vicious, and it is a monopoly like any of the other monopolies of James I.-a grant in its nature criminal. Most of the forty boroughs created by James I. were so. It appears from the grants themselves that they were intended to be private property. They were granted as a personal reward for doing some specified transaction." Thus, there are these two descriptions of boroughs: the one intended

* Referring to the enfranchisement of close boroughs, Mr. Grattan in 1797 thus expressed himself in the House of Commons: "Thus by far the greater number of your boroughs, and near one half your representation, is not your ancient Constitution, but a gross and flagrant encroachment, and a violent usurpation of the worst family that ever trampled on the independency and fabric of representation." — "Irish Debates," vol. xvii. p. 563.