Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 5.djvu/344

330 Curran, and others declared that the Irish parliament could hear no resolutions but those which they themselves had sanctioned. Accordingly, though Mr. Orde carried his permission to introduce his bill, it was only by a majority of nineteen, and under such opposition that, on the 15th, he moved to have it printed for the information of the country, but announced that he should proceed no further in it at present. This was considered as a total abandonment of the measure, and there was a general rejoicing as for a national deliverance, and Dublin was illuminated. But in the country the spirit of agitation on the subject remained: the non-importation associations were renewed, in imitation of the proceedings in Boston, and the most dreadful menaces were uttered against all who should dare to import manufactured goods from England.



The consequences were the stoppage of trade—especially in the sea ports—the increase of distress and of riots, and the soldiers were obliged to be kept under arms in Dublin and other towns to prevent outbreaks.

Before the Irish affairs were done with, Pitt moved for leave to bring in his promised reform bill. If Pitt was yet really desirous of reforming parliament, it was the last occasion on which he showed it, and it may reasonably be believed that he introduced this measure more for a show of consistency than for any other purpose. He had taken no active steps to prepare a majority for the occasion; every one was left to do as he thought best, and his opening observations showed that he was by no means sanguine as to the measure passing the house: "The number of gentlemen," he said, "who are hostile to reform are a phalanx which ought to give alarm to any individual upon rising to suggest such a motion." His plan consisted in transferring the franchise from thirty-six rotten boroughs to the counties, giving the copyholders the right to vote. This plan would confer seventy-two additional members on the counties, and thus, in fact, strengthen the representation of the landed interest at the expense of the towns; and he proposed to compensate the boroughs so disfranchised by money. Wilberforce, Dundas, and Fox spoke in favour of the bill; Burke spoke against it. Many voted against it, on account of the compensation offered, Mr. Bankes remarking that Pitt was paying for what he declared, under any circumstances, unsaleable. The motion was lost by two hundred and forty-eight against one hundred and seventy-four.

But though Pitt ceased to be a parliamentary reformer—and, by degrees, became the most determined opponent of all reform—he yet made an immediate movement for administrative reform. He took up the plans of Burke, praying for a commission to inquire into the fees, gratuities, perquisites, and emoluments which are, or have lately been received in the various public offices, with reference to abuses existing in the same. He stated that, already—acting on the information of the reports of the board of commissioners appointed in lord North's time—fixed salaries, instead of fees and poundages, had been introduced in the office of the land-tax, and the post-office had been so improved as to return now weekly into the treasury three thousand pounds sterling, instead of seven hundred sterling. Similar regulations he proposed to introduce into the pay-office, the navy and ordnance office. He stated, also, that he had, when out of office, asserted that no less than forty-four millions sterling remained unaccounted for by men who had been in different offices. He was