name to the overseer, and the overseer neglected to insert it, the party so sending could have the matter rectified on proof of the fact of sending, before the barrister appointed for that purpose. Another clause was added at the end of the bill, which referred to the dates already fixed for making lists, registering names, &c. As the bill stood, the 20th of June was named for the first registration, on the supposition that the boundary bill would be passed by that time; but as that bill could not now be expected to have become the law of the land at that date, it was necessary to change the dates named in the bill; and the clause introduced by the lords gave to the Crown the power to fix such dates by an Order in Council. With these and some other verbal alterations, the bill was read a third time, and passed on the 4th of June; 106 peers voting for it, and twenty-two against it. The division was preceded by a hot skirmish between earl Grey, on the one hand, and, on the other, the earl of Harrowby and lord Wharncliffe, who had thus seen so lamentably disappointed the hopes of modification or amendment which had induced them to lend their aid to the second reading.

The amendments introduced by the peers were agreed to on the following day by the House of Commons, without any discussion regarding their merits, though not

without much angry remark in attack and defence of the conduct of ministers in the late events. Sir Robert Peel said he was ready, without hesitation, to give his assent to them, and if they had been proposed for his adoption the instant they came back from the lords, and without being printed, he would have been ready to do so; for he was one of those who thought that they should not go through the farce of considering the value of amendments made by a body which was not in the exercise or enjoyment of its constitutional and legislative powers. Under such circumstances, though these amendments might extend to five or six pages, and though they might relate to the most important act that had been passed during the last century, and though, viewing them in that light, he might have been otherwise inclined to ask for some days to consider them, yet, when he called to mind that they were amendments made by the House of Lords under compulsion, he cared not on what day or how soon they should be asked to agree to them. On the 7th of June, the royal assent was given to the bill by commission, although the reforming press had clamoured loudly that his Majesty would forfeit the confidence of true patriots if he did not perform this ceremony in person, and exhibit himself as publicly as possible in testimony of the subjugation to which his crown and his peers had been reduced.

land-owners had likewise acquired superiorities; but in practice, likewise, many voters had acquired superiorities who had no connexion with the county; and the franchise itself, though its holder might incidentally possess property, did not, in its principle, depend upon property. By the proposed bill, the rights of those who already possessed the existing franchise was preserved; but the franchise was extended to all proprietors of lands, houses, or feu-duties, yielding to him 10l. annually, to tenants holding under a lease for their lifetime, or for fifty-seven years, and having an interest of not less than 10., and to tenants holding under a lease of not less than nineteen years duration, and having an interest of not less than 50l. Of the cities and towns in Scotland, none possessed the privilege of returning members except the royal boroughs. These were classed into districts, without any regard to their comparative importance, each district returning a member, and each burgh in the district having one vote. This vote, again, was the vote of the majority of its magistrates and town-council, or in other words of the incorporation, to whom the franchise exclusively belonged. There were boroughs of considerable wealth and population, which, as they were not royal boroughs, had no share in the representation. Of the royal boroughs some had too small a share, in consequence of being united with others which were comparatively insignificant. Thus Glasgow, entitled to rank with Liverpool and Manchester in population and wealth, in commerce and manufactures, was joined, in electing a member, with three other boroughs, two of which

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did not deserve the name of towns, while the third was of very inferior importance. Edinburgh alone had a member for itself. By the proposed bill, Glasgow was to be allowed to return two members. Edinburgh, likewise, was to return two instead of one. deen, Dundee, and Perth, were separated from the districts of royal boroughs to which they had hitherto belonged, and each of them received the right of electing a member for itself. The same privilege was conferred on Paisley and Greenock which were not royal boroughs, and had hitherto been unrepresented. Some other towns of the same kind, which were not considered to require a separate representation, took the place, in the borough districts, of those which had been promoted to independent representation; for the system of district representation was still maintained. One district, which had consisted of a number of small royal boroughs on the northern shore of the Firth of Forth, was extinguished by transferring them. into a district, out of which Perth, Dundee, and Forfar had been taken; and a new district was formed consisting of Leith, Portobello, and Musselburgh on the southern shore, and in the vicinity of the capital. There was thus an addition of eight members to the representation of Scotland, and the addition was given exclusively to the borough representation. Into the boroughs, too, was introduced the uniform 10l. qualification, every person being entitled to vote who owned or occupied premises of any kind of that yearly value.

The bill was read a second time on the 21st of May, the day on which the restored ministry resumed the committee in the lords

on the English bill. No resistance was made to the second reading; the opposition, though they repeated their objections to so radical a change, which, in the words of the lord Advocate who introduced it, " left not a shred or patch of the former system," knew that all resistance was hopeless, and thought that this measure must follow as part of the general scheme, all the elements of which had already triumphed in regard to England. Some of the Scotch members, who had adhered to ministers in regard to the English bill, complained, however, that the Scotch bill did not do justice to the landed interest, the county representation bearing no fair proportion to that of the boroughs. In the committee, Sir George Murray contended that the total number of members given to Scotland was too small, and moved an amendment to the effect of giving two members to each of the larger counties. He argued that, taking any, or all, of the rules which had been applied to England, the representation which the bill established for Scotland was inadequate. Assuming population as the basis, if England and Wales had 500 members, Scotland should have eighty-five. If taxation was taken as the criterion, Scotland should have fifty-nine. If both were taken, Scotland ought to have seventy-two. Taking population, revenue, and assessment on real property, the number of Scotch members ought to be sixty-nine, or rather seventy-five; for, in the revenue fell to be included various duties, such as those on tea, which were paid in England, and not comprehended in the returns for Scotland. Again, Wales had one member to every 28,000 inhabitants; Scotland, one member

to 44,000 inhabitants. What proportion was there here? In some of the English counties, the disproportion, in comparison with Scotland, was still more glaring. In Rutland, there was a member to every 9,000 inhabitants. The county of Aberdeen, which had 177,600 inhabitants, was represented by two members-that is, one to every 79,000. Argyll, which contained 101,000 inhabitants, was represented by one and a quarter, or one member to every 81,000 inhabitants. The lord Advocate admitted, that if he had been forming an opinion on fair abstract principles, Sir George Murray's views would be correct; but it was impossible to proceed on such principles, and there existed even in regard to the English counties many anomalies which could not have been removed without justly exposing the framers of the bill to the imputation of adopting a theoretical and fantastical scheme. Thus the population of the counties of Middlesex, Surrey, and Kent, amounted to 2,334,000; that of Scotland to 2,345,000. In point of wealth and amount of taxes there was no comparison; for while Scotland paid in assessed taxes 280,000l., these three counties paid 1,600,000l. Yet they were only to have forty-three members, while Scotland was to have fiftythree, being one-fifth more. There was an obvious fact, too, to account for the representation allotted to Scotland, namely, the smallness of the Scottish counties in comparison with those of England. Scotland was divided into thirty-three counties, while England, a country so much superior in extent and population, had no more than forty. Now, if they took separate representation with the small counties,

it was necessary that they should take single representation with the large. To this the supporters of the amendment answered, that, although the Scottish counties were more numerous in proportion than those of England, the very smallest English county had two members, while no Scottish county had more than one. Or why was not the same principle applied to England? There, the fact that the very smallest county had two members, had not been treated as a reason for giving no more than two to the larger. On the contrary, the counties of moderate size had received three members, and the largest four members, while Yorkshire had six. The amendment was rejected by 168 to

61.

Various other amendments were moved in the details of the bill, and pressed to divisions, but always with the same result. Thus, a division took place on a provision which cut off certain portions of the county of Perth, to increase the constituency of two adjoining small counties, which were themselves united; and the sense of the committee was taken on various objections to the manner in which places newly vested with the franchise were added to the former districts, and which betrayed, it was alleged, attention to particular interests rather than to the relations which the places bore to each other. In the original bill, PortGlasgow had been united with Greenock. These two places are not two miles from each other. They both lie on the Clyde. They are both out-ports, and have the same branches of commerce. But the influence of the Glasgow mer chants is much more powerful in Port Glasgow than in Greenock

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The reformers of the latter, therefore, applied to ministers to have Port Glasgow disjoined from them. Their wish was complied with. A majority of seventy-three to fortyseven, threw Portglasgow into a district, the other burghs in which were far removed from it in geographical distance, and still more widely separated in regard to the interests which they represented. One of them was a newly created borough Kilmarnock which seemed destined, in every point of view to belong to the Ayr district; but it was joined to a set of distant companions, because, it was said, its junction with Ayr would have endangered the influence of the ministerial member for that district. An amendment which went to exclude the clergy of Scotland from the franchise, was moved and seconded by two Scotch reformers. It was rejected by seventy-two voices against seven, and it certainly was difficult to conceive on what principle of reason or justice men, who had allowed the English clergy to pass unscathed, could defend such a measure in regard to the clergy of Scotland. The same proposition, however, was renewed, though with no greater success, in the House of Lords, by a whig peer, the duke of Hamilton.

By the old election law of Scotland, although a landed qualification was required in a county member, no particular qualification was necessary in a burgh representative. In the committee ministers inserted a clause which made it imperative that a candidate for a burgh should possess a landed estate of a certain value. It was first suggested by an adherent of the reform bills, and was moved by the lord Advocate. It occasioned