Page:The Irish Parliament; what it was, and what it did.djvu/12

 or educational qualifications. In no instance is the franchise the same as the British Parliamentary franchise.

Ireland, on the other hand, had, like England, its hereditary House of Peers. In England and in Ireland, the laws regulating the Parliamentary franchise, were, before the Union, exactly the same. The similarity of the Irish and English Constitutions was thus described by Mr. Flood, in the Irish House of Commons:—"Ireland had," he said, "a Parliamentary constitution the same as that of England, with an hereditary and ennobled branch of the legislature, invested with final judicature, above three hundred years before any colony in America had a name. Those colonies have had popular assemblies, it is true, but not parliaments consisting of king, lords, and commons, with all the powers belonging to them." "From the earliest introduction," says Mr. Butt, "of the power of the English kings into Ireland, the Irish, who submitted to the rule of those kings, had a right to the same Parliamentary constitution as that which England enjoyed." "The Irish Parliament had, like the English Parliament, its hereditary House of Peers. Its House of Commons was elected exactly like the English House of Commons, by the freeholders of the counties, and by cities and towns deriving their right to return members from the charters of kings. The freehold franchise was the same in both, and the royal charters had exactly the same effect