tix) COBDEN’S PLAN OF ERFOBRM. 489

% munch ag possible to County courts. There is very little 1848.
advantage for instance in carrying a road bill from Hoss. Ards
Shire to Edinburgh instead of to London, or from Galway
% Dublin instead of to London. The private or local
business occupies much less of the time of the House of
Commons than many people suppose. An hour on an
erage at the opening of the sittings daily suffices; the
“ost is all done in select Committees, and a great deal of ib
by Mr, Green and Mr. Bernal, Chairmen of Committees,
Who, I suspect, would find it no advantage in Irish matters
b be in Dublin. Bad as the system is of bringing to the
House of Commons all the Jocal business of the kingdom,
lam sure it would not mend the matter to split us into
three sections, as your friends propose, for two or three
Monthy, and then to reunite in London for imperial pur-Poses,
 We should be in perpetual session.
“Whilst we are constitution-tinkering, let me give you
hy plan. Each county to have its assembly elected by the
People, to do the work which the unpaid magistrates and
lords lieutenant now do, and alse much of the local business
Which now comes before Parlisment. The head of this
body, or rather the head of each county, to be the excentive
Chief, partaking of the cheracter of prefect, or governor of
% state in the United States. By-and-by when you require
to change the constitution of the House of Lords, these
County legislators may each elect two senators to an upper
*hamber or senate.
“But the question is about Ireland. Why do your
friends amuse one another with such bubble-blowing? The
teal difficulty in Ireland is the character and condition
Socially and morally of the people, from the peer to the
Connanghs peasant. It is not by forms of legislation or
the locality of parliaments, but by a change and improve-Went
 of the population. that Treland 3g to have a stard in the