Although, however, for twenty years past, we have anticipated with certainty the ultimate extension of the suffrage to a still lower class of voters, as the unavoidable consequence of the Reform Bill, yet we must admit that we did not anticipate the _mode_ in which the necessity for this extension was to be brought about. We thought it would arise from the increase of the unenfranchised population, and the loud cry for electoral privileges on the part of the inferior urban or working population. Not at all: a very different reason is now assigned for the extension of the suffrage in Ireland. It is not the increase of the unenfranchised, but the _diminution of the enfranchised_, which is assigned as the reason for the change. It is said there are now only 72,000 voters in Ireland, instead of 250,000, which there should be, and which it was calculated the Reform Bill would bring up to the poll. Mr Cobden boasts that he has more constituents in the West Riding than there are in all the counties in Ireland put together. We have no doubt the remark is well founded; although the fact of so numerous a constituency having selected the man who made the boast, augurs but little for the wisdom, if kindred, of the measures which we may expect from the popularly elected representatives for the sister kingdom. But the material thing to observe is this: A great and important change on the Reform Bill--an innovation on the foundations which, we were told, were _non tangenda non movenda_ of the new Constitution, is vindicated on the immense destruction of the former freeholders which has taken place within these few years. We have long been aware of the fact: we adverted to it, in the most pointed manner, in a late article on the effects of Free Trade.[2] But we little expected that our observations were so soon to be confirmed from so high a quarter, and that the first breach in the Constitution, as fixed by the Reform Bill, would be justified on the avowed destruction of the freeholders of Ireland which the Reform measures have effected. [2] See Free Trade at its Zenith: _Blackwood's Magazine_, Dec. 1849.