Yesterday all the Tories were in high glee at their success at the Canterbury and Walsall elections, the former not having been expected by either party, and nevertheless they had a majority of 165 votes. It is certainly curious, for the Government have a right to be popular, or, at least, to expect that no tide of unpopularity should rise against them; and after all their successes, and the declared inability of their opponents to find fault with them, it is strange that they should lose ground to the extent that they have. The Government see all the danger of their position, and how very probable it is that they may be reduced to the necessity of resignation or dissolution, and, though they have no hopes of bettering themselves by the latter, they have made up their minds to try the experiment, in order that they may give the Queen no reason to accuse them of unnecessarily deserting her, and not exhausting every expedient to retain their places before they give them up. They are, however, very much divided upon the question of what to dissolve upon, some being for so doing on Stanley's Irish Registration Bill, if then defeated, while others (more judiciously, _mea sententia_) are against going to the country on any Irish question.[8] [8] [The Irish system for the registration of voters differed materially from that of England. In Ireland, every person claiming to vote for the first time was obliged to prove his title; in England, all claims were admitted that were not objected to, and other abuses had crept in. Attempts had been made by the Government to remedy this evil, but in vain; and in 1840 Lord Stanley, then in Opposition, took it in hand, and brought in an Irish Registration Bill, which was opposed by O'Connell and by Lord Morpeth, then Irish Secretary, but on two successive divisions Ministers were beaten. This Bill was, however, withdrawn. In 1841 Lord Stanley and Lord Morpeth both brought in Irish Registration Bills; the former was meant to clear the Register of fictitious voters, the latter was a Reform Bill in disguise, for it extended the franchise to leaseholders rated at L5 a year. The contest between these two rival Bills occupied the early parts of the session. The second reading of Lord Morpeth's Bill was carried by 299 to 294, but eventually the qualification clause was struck out of the Bill in Committee by a division of 300 to 294 on April 29. (See Walpole's _History of England_, vol. iii. p. 520.)] February 9th, 1841 {p.373}