rish legislative body comprises 103 members. It
is intended to consist ultimately wholly of elective members; but for
the next immediate period of thirty years the rights of the Irish
representative peers are, as will be seen, scrupulously reserved. The
plan is this: of the 103 members composing the first order, seventy-five
are elective, and twenty-eight peerage members. The qualification of the
elective members is an annual income of L200, or the possession of a
capital sum of L4000 free from all charges. The elections are to be
conducted in the electoral districts set out in the schedule to the
Bill. The electors must possess land or tenements within the district of
the annual value of L25. The twenty-eight peerage members consist of the
existing twenty-eight representative peers, and any vacancies in their
body during the next thirty years are to be filled up in the manner at
present in use respecting the election of Irish representative peers.
The Irish representative peers cease to sit in the English Parliament;
but a member of that body is not required to sit in the Irish Parliament
without his assent, and the place of any existing peer refusing to sit
in the Irish Parliament will be filled up as in the case of an ordinary
vacancy. The elective members of the first order sit for ten years;
every five years one half their number will retire. The members of the
first order do not vacate their seats on a dissolution of the
legislative body. At the expiration of thirty years, that is to say,
upon the exhaustion of all the existing Irish representative peers, the
whole of the upper order will consist of elective members. The second
order consists of 204 members, that is to say, of the 103 existing Irish
members (who are transferred to the Irish Parliament), and of 101
additional members to be elected by the county districts and the
represented towns, in the same manner as that in which the present 101
members for counties and towns are elected--each constituency returning
two instead of one member. If an existing member does not assent to his
transfer, his seat is vacated.

A power is given to the Legislature of Ireland to enable the Royal
University of Ireland to return two members.

The provisions with respect to this second order fall within the class
of enactments which are alterable by the Irish Legislature. After the
first dissolution of parliament the Irish Legislature may deal with the
second order in any man