sixteen on Mr. Disraeli’s motion for the relief of agricultural distress. But the fatal blow came when Mr. Locke King, on the 20th of February, brought forward his motion for leave to introduce a Bill for equalising the town and county franchise, by reducing the latter to the limit of £10 yearly value. Although Lord John Russell promised to bring in a measure for improving representation, he resisted Mr. King’s motion. It was then carried against him by a vote of 100 against 52. “The Ecclesiastical Titles Bill,” writes Mr. Cobden to his friend Mr. J. Parker, “is the real cause of the upset of the Whig coach, or rather of the coachman leaping from the box to escape an upset. This measure cannot be persevered in by any Government so far as Ireland is concerned, for no Government can exist if fifty Irish members are pledged to vote against them under all circumstances when they are in danger. A dissolution would give at least fifty members to do that work, and they would be all watched as they are now by their constituents. This mode of fighting by means of adverse votes in the House is far more difficult to deal with by our aristocratic rulers than was the plan of O’Connell, when he called his monster meetings. They could be stopped by a proclamation or put down by soldiers, but neither of these modes will avail in the House. What folly,” adds Mr. Cobden, as if he had even then foreseen the success of Parnellism in our day, “it was to give a real representation to the Irish counties, and to think of still maintaining the old persecuting ascendency.”[31] On the 22nd of February, Lord John, as Mr. Cobden says, “leaped from the box,” for on that day he and his colleagues resigned.