TABLE 1.-Number of Voters in each of the following Years.

2 Estimated.

3 The large increase (112,513) in Ireland between 1833 and 1866 is mainly due to the Irish Act of 1850 brought in by the Government of Lord John Russell.

TABLE 2.-Increases in number of Voters consequent upon the Acts of 1832, 1867-8,

Whilst, therefore, the general increase in 1832 was only about 220,000, the number enfranchised in 1867-8 amounted to nearly 1,000,000, and in 1884 to no less than 2,500,000. The boroughs, if we except those of Ireland, were, of course, the great gainers by the Act of 1867; but the Irish counties came in for a lion's share in 1884. Although the general increase in 1832 was comparatively so small, it will not escape observation that in Scotland the numbers in counties rose from 3,276 to 33,115, and in boroughs from 1,303 to 31,322, or, taking the whole electorate, from 4,579 to 64,437!

Another circumstance worthy of note is the small increase in the number of electors in Ireland under the legislation of 1867-8, which added less than 18,000 to the register, whereas under Mr. Gladstone's Act of 1884 the number exceeded half a million.

It has already been pointed out that by the Act of 1884 all the occupation franchises have been rendered uniform both in counties. and in boroughs throughout the United Kingdom; but, when we compare the ownership franchises one with another, as in the following table, we shall see that we are still a long way from having placed them upon a similar footing.

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TABLE 3.-A Classified Table, showing the Persons entitled to vote under the existing Franchises, exclusively of those whose rights were reserved under the Franchise repealed in 1832 and 1884.

This Table is only intended to indicate the chief characteristics of the different franchises, and no attempt has been made to set forth the conditions and restrictions to which they are subject. To have done so would have occupied almost as much space as the present Article.

The eye of a registration agent is not needed to detect the anomalies and complications shown by this skeleton table. Thus in English counties we have three kinds of freehold franchises, whilst in Scotland there is only one. In Ireland there are two, but they both differ from those in England. In Ireland the two leasehold franchises are 101. and 201. In Scotland and Ireland they are 5l. and 50l. In Ireland and in Scotland there is no 40s. franchise for freeholders in fee, and no franchise under 5l. for freeholders for a life or lives in occupation. In Scotland the proprietors of ownership qualifications in boroughs vote for the borough, and not for the county; but the ownership qualification in boroughs is required to be of the value of 10l., whilst that for the county is only 5l. In England and in Ireland the borough freeholders vote for the county at large and not for the borough, unless the borough happens to be a county of a city or of a town; so that whilst, as a general rule, the constituencies of the English and Irish boroughs consist exclusively of occupation voters (except where there are freemen), those of the counties embrace both occupiers and owners, including the owners whose qualifications are in the boroughs.

In boroughs which are counties of cities or of towns, the owners vote for the borough; unless in a case like Dublin, which was extended some years ago, where the owners within the extended limits vote for the county, and those within the boundaries of the old city continue to vote for the borough. It is only necessary to refer to the table to see how the ownership franchises in these boroughs differ in England and in Ireland, and how they differ from the same franchises in the counties proper.

However much, therefore, we may plume ourselves upon the reforms which we have made in our electoral system, it is evident that much remains to be done to stamp upon it the two characteristics it ought to possess: viz. uniformity and simplicity. And it can scarcely be supposed that, in the present rapid march of events, and with the existing restless rivalry of political life, attempts will not be made to remove some at least of the blots with which it is disfigured. Indeed recent legislation has accentuated one of these blots to such an extent that it cannot fail to fasten attention on the subject.

As already pointed out, persons having ownership qualifications in boroughs vote in respect of them for the county and not for the borough. Now by the Local Government Act of 1888 no less than sixty-one of the largest of the English boroughs, together with the whole of those in the Metropolis, have been taken out of the counties in which they are geographically situate and set up as separate and distinct counties for all financial and administrative purposes.

Of these boroughs, as many as forty used to contribute towards the general expenditure of the county, but now they no longer do so; and although there are some matters, such as the business relating to

county parliamentary elections, the assizes, and the militia, which have not been transferred, these boroughs now exercise exclusively all the chief powers which belong to a county authority. Unless then it be on the ground that some other boroughs have always been in this category, it is not easy to understand upon what other ground persons whose ownership qualifications are in these new county boroughs should still be allowed to vote for the counties of which they have ceased to form part for all the main purposes of county finance and administration; or why eight thousand ownership electors, having their qualifications within the new county of London, should still continue to swamp the county of Middlesex with their votes.

Leaving aside all consideration of the extension of the franchise to the sex that has never yet possessed it, it is not difficult to foresee that the minister who elects or is compelled to deal with this aggravated anomaly, as well as the other anomalies previously described, will have no easy task before him. Of schemes and suggestions there will be no end.

There will be the inevitable deputation from one party who, assuming a spirit of great fairness, will say, 'We are entirely in favour of the assimilation of the county and borough franchises. It is the principle that our late distinguished leader, Lord Beaconsfield, when Mr. Disraeli, sought to establish by his Bill of 1859; and, although we shall part with our old and tried friends, the freemen, with a sigh, we hope they will be able to qualify themselves in some other way. We agree also that the ownership franchises are unnecessarily complicated, and ought to be simplified. Lower them if you please, but on no account abolish them altogether, for they are the safeguards of the constitution. And '-will whisper in his ear, should the minister happen to be a Tory, the patriotic zealot, lingering behind his colleagues when the audience is ended-' what is of still greater importance, they are the bulwarks of our party.'

Another set of politicians will wellnigh overwhelm him with the vigour of their trenchant assurance that it is idle to think of transferring the ownership voters to the boroughs, who do not want them and will not have them; and that the only way to deal effectually with the subject is to sweep the ownership franchises entirely away. Then, in strident tones and with a logic there will be no gainsaying, they will set forth that these voters were created before household suffrage and the occupation franchise were even thought of for the counties, and that as almost every ownership voter now possesses another qualification, they are altogether destructive of the important principle of 'One man, one vote,' the true and leading principle of the Liberal creed, and should no longer be suffered to complicate our system of registration with their separate lists of voters, giving rise to endless trouble, inconvenience, and expense. But at the same time, if members of the party should deem it good policy to VOL. XXVI.-No. 154.

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soothe the apprehensions of their opponents, some will not fail to point out that the Scotch boroughs, where the owners vote, are not more Conservative than those in England, where they do not; and that Liverpool and Birmingham, without them, are not less. Tory and Unionist than many neighbouring counties, where they constitute a large portion of the constituency.

A third party, borne more rapidly on with the flowing tide, will not hesitate to say boldly that franchises based upon varying values of so many shillings or so many pounds can only be regarded as artificial expedients, invented for the purpose of limiting the right of voting to certain privileged classes, instead of conferring it upon the great body of the people; and they will roundly declare that there must be no tinkering, and that if simplicity and uniformity are really desired, there is no alternative but to adopt residential manhood suffrage as proposed by the Bill introduced by Mr. Howell in 1886. They will point to the system of manhood suffrage that exists in France and the United States, and pertinently ask why we have spent so many millions of money since 1870, and are still spending such vast sums, in educating the people, unless it be in order to make them capable citizens and qualify them to take part in public affairs. Nor do I think it needs prophetic vision to foresee that they will clench their argument with a triumphant reference to the Dockers' strike as an irrefragable proof of the better influences and disciplined self-control that now prevail amongst those who once unfortunately, if not contemptuously, were designated the residuum of the population.

For my own part I will not attempt to adjudicate upon any of these three proposals, nor will I venture to forecast what course the next minister of electoral reform will adopt, holding as I do, with Cobbett, that it is not safe to prophesy until after the event. But I certainly shall not call that man rash who asserts that, in the long run, the last is the most likely to carry the day.

JOHN LAMBERT.