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They had been accustomed to censure and oppose it. Only nine months before, the Irish Nationalists had emphasized their hostility to the Liberal party by doing their utmost to defeat Liberal candidates in English constituencies. Hence, when it was proclaimed that Home Rule was the true remedy which the Liberal party must accept, they were startled and discomposed.
A house of commons elected by the old constituencies, and under the old franchises, had declared in favour of a well-considered reform bill.
Several much-needed suggestions were made in the despatch on subjects of practical importance among others as to the remuneration of members of the Assembly representing Town constituencies; as to the extension of the franchise to persons who, by reason of their religious scruples, could not conscientiously take the prescribed oath; as to the repeal of the law disqualifying British subjects from voting at elections till the expiration of seven years after their return from a residence in a foreign country; and as to the interference of ecclesiastical Legislative Councillors in secular matters.
Among other things they point out that a politician should not be 'a waterweed which wobbles hither and thither according to the motion of the stream. Nor should he 'like a ghost without legs drift along before the wind. 'Your conduct, they say, 'has been both of a waterweed and a ghost, and we purpose in a little time to give you proof of our true Japanese spirit. That member will very likely be mobbed in his 'rickshaw and prodded to inconvenience with sword-sticks; for the constituencies are most enlightened.
Constituencies would become competitors for the best candidates, and would vie with one another in selecting from among the men of local knowledge and connections those who were most distinguished in every other respect.
The General Assembly met, according to agreement, on the 23rd of October, 1642, at Kilkenny. Eleven-bishops and fourteen lay lords represented the Irish peerage; two hundred and twenty-six commoners, the large majority of the constituencies. Both bodies sat in the same chamber, divided only by a raised dais.
Sir Christopher Barnewall took strong exception to the methods that had been adopted to pack the assembly, but though the judges when appealed to upheld his objections on two counts they decided against him on the vital question, namely, the selection of English officials who had never seen the constituencies they were supposed to represent.
Some of the members of the new Administration were not successful when they made their appeal to their old constituencies.
From his perch on the Mintern hills he commanded half the midlands, in more senses than one; knew thirty or forty constituencies by heart; was consulted in all difficulties; was better acquainted with "the pulse of the party" than its chief agent, and was never left out of count by any important Minister framing an important bill.
It did not originate in the constituencies, but in the Cabinet; it was not forced upon the caucus by an aroused and indignant country, but by the caucus upon the country; nine-tenths of its momentum has been derived from above and not from below; the true centers of excitement throughout its polite and orderly progress have been the lobbies of the House and the correspondence columns of The Times; it was only at the last that the urbanities of the struggle between the "Die-hards" and their fellow Unionists furnished the public as a whole with material for a mild sporting interest.