The Government of England Part 21

[Sidenote: Its Effects.]

From 1832 to 1862, in spite of the general gain in wealth, the electors had increased very little faster than the population; in England and Wales, indeed, the voters remained about one twentieth of the people,[208:3] while in Scotland they had risen only from one thirty seventh to one thirtieth.[208:4] But the Acts of 1867 and 1868 almost doubled the electorate. In the counties the voters, who numbered 768,705 just before those acts, were, by 1871, 1,055,467; while the borough voters increased from 602,088 to 1,470,956.[208:5]

[Sidenote: The Act of 1884.]

It was evident that the qualifications for voting could not long remain far wider in one cla.s.s of const.i.tuencies than in another; that the franchise of the boroughs must, in time, be extended to the counties.

This was done in 1884,[208:6] and the change more than doubled the county electorate. The franchise, therefore, is now substantially uniform throughout the United Kingdom, except that certain owners and leaseholders have a right to vote in counties, and that in some old towns the freemen still possess the suffrage. Inasmuch as most of the boroughs are included in counties, the occupier, householder, or lodger would be ent.i.tled on the same qualifying property to vote in both; and hence a man in a borough would have two votes at an election, while another man with the same qualification outside of the borough would have only one. To avoid this result it is provided that a man shall not be ent.i.tled to vote at an election for a county in respect of the occupation of a dwelling-house, lodging, land or tenement in a borough;[209:1] but he may vote in the county on account of the ownership of land in a borough which he does not occupy, or on account of land which he both owns and occupies if he occupies other land in the borough sufficient to qualify him there.[209:2]

[Sidenote: The Existing Qualifications.]

Although the franchise is now substantially uniform, it is not exactly the same for the different parts of the United Kingdom; nor is it by any means simple. The latest acts have not codified the law. It must still be sought in many statutes, whose provisions are so complicated, and often obscure, that they can be understood only by studying the interpretation put upon them by the courts. The reader who wishes to ascertain the law on a special point must refer to treatises upon the subject, such as Rogers on "Elections." It will be enough for our purpose to summarise the various franchises as they exist to-day.

[Sidenote: Property.]

There are two qualifications which are not universal. One of these, relating to property rights in land, applies only to counties, and to some extent to boroughs which are counties in themselves.[209:3] It confers the right to vote on owners of land[210:1] of forty shillings yearly value, who hold an estate of inheritance; or who hold an estate for life, and are in actual occupation of the land, or have acquired it by some means other than purchase, or whose land is of five pounds clear yearly value.[210:2] Under this franchise come, also, the leaseholders of land of five pounds yearly value if the original term was not less than sixty years, and fifty pounds value if the term was not less than twenty years.[210:3] The corresponding qualifications for Scotland and Ireland are slightly different in their conditions and in the values required.

[Sidenote: Freemen.]

The other franchise which is not universal is that of freemen in those towns where they had a right to vote before 1832. The privilege still exists in a number of old boroughs, but, except in the City of London, is confined to freemen who have become such by birth or apprenticeship.

[Sidenote: Occupiers, Householders, and Lodgers.]

The three remaining franchises are universal, though not precisely uniform. They are those of the ten-pound occupiers, the householders, and the lodgers. The first of these gives the right to vote to a man who occupies, as owner or tenant, any land or tenement of the clear yearly value of ten pounds. The second confers the right on a man who occupies, as owner or tenant, any dwelling-house, or part of a house used as a separate dwelling, without regard to its value. The qualification extends also to men who are not owners or tenants, but who occupy by virtue of an office, service, or employment, a dwelling-house in which the employer does not himself reside. The third of these franchises confers the right to vote upon a man who occupies lodgings of the value, unfurnished, of ten pounds a year.

The application of these franchises to particular cases has given rise to a great amount of litigation, and in particular the courts have found it almost impossible to distinguish between a householder and a lodger.

For the general reader, who is concerned with the study of the English government, and not with the effort to get the largest possible number of party members registered, such questions have little interest; but there are two or three matters that ought to be noted, because they have an important bearing on the actual size of the electorate.

[Sidenote: Period of Occupation.]

One matter of political consequence relates to the period of occupation required. Owners of land in counties, who have acquired it by descent, marriage, promotion to an office, etc., are not required to have owned it for any period. All other owners must have held the t.i.tle for six calendar months before the 15th of July preceding the registration; and all other voters, except freemen, must have been in occupation of the qualifying premises, or some other premises within the same const.i.tuency, for one year preceding the 15th of July.[211:1] This, of course, has the effect of disqualifying entirely persons whose occupation has not been continuous for the whole of that year, and as the register does not take effect until the 1st of January following, and then remains in effect a whole year, voters who have moved to another part of the country within eighteen months after their year of occupation can vote only by a journey back to their former place of abode.

[Sidenote: Residence.]

A second matter that must be noticed is the question of residence.

Before the Reform Act of 1832 the qualification for counties was based upon ownership; that for boroughs varied very much; but in those places where the franchise was broad it was based mainly upon residence. This distinction has, to some extent, persisted. In general it may be said that for English and Scotch counties, and in Ireland for both boroughs and counties, residence is not required, except so far as the occupation of a dwelling-house or lodging may involve residence and this is not necessarily the case.[211:2]

In English boroughs a voter must have resided for six calendar months previous to the 15th of July in the borough, or within seven miles thereof;[212:1] and in Scotland he must have resided there for a whole year.

The requirement of residence does not, however, imply quite so much as might appear, because, according to English law, the possession of a chamber in which a man occasionally sleeps, and to which he can return at any time, is enough to const.i.tute residence; and, hence, he may have a residence in more than one place.[212:2] In the counties, therefore, residence is unnecessary, and even in the boroughs the requirement of residence does not limit a man to voting in a single const.i.tuency. The importance of this will shortly be pointed out.

[Sidenote: Payment of Rates.]

The third matter to be noticed is the question of rating. We have already observed that at one time the personal payment of rates by the voter was much discussed, and was regarded as an important guarantee of character.[212:3] In England poor rates are a.s.sessed upon the occupiers, not the owners, of the property, and it is still provided that all voters whose qualification depends upon the occupation of land (except lodgers, who are not from the legal point of view occupiers) must have been rated and must have paid their rates.[212:4] But this means only that the rates must have been paid on their behalf; and the practice of compounding by the landlord for small tenements is so universal that practically the landlord pays the rates in almost all cases where the occupiers would be likely to fail to do so. In England, therefore, the requirement that the rates must have been paid has little or no effect on the electorate. In Scotland, on the other hand, this is not the case.

There the rates are divided between the owner and the occupier, and the practice of compounding does not exist. The result is that many occupiers are omitted from the parliamentary register every year on account of their failure to pay rates. For the whole of Scotland the number reaches fifty thousand.[213:1]

[Sidenote: Actual Extent of the Suffrage.]

A comparison of the number of electors on the register with the total population shows that England is not very far to-day from manhood suffrage. The ratio is about one in six,[213:2] whereas the normal proportion of males above the age of twenty-one years (making no allowance for paupers, criminals, and other persons disqualified by the laws of all countries), is somewhat less than one in four. The only cla.s.ses excluded from the franchise are domestic servants, bachelors living with their parents and occupying no premises on their own account, and persons whose change of abode deprives them of a vote. Now, these are not necessarily the worst political elements in the community.

No doubt the provision requiring twelve months' occupation excludes vagrants, but it also excludes excellent artisans who migrate with changes of trade, and other persons whose calling compels them to move from place to place. In 1902 a school-teacher, in a plaintive letter to _The Times_,[213:3] described how he had never been able to vote at a general election. He had graduated with honours from his university, was nearly forty years old, married, and prosperous; but his very success in his profession, by involving changes of residence, had always cost him the right to vote. It is a common saying that many respectable people are disfranchised from this cause, although the slums, which move little, are not.

The present condition of the franchise is, indeed, historical rather than rational. It is complicated, uncertain, expensive in the machinery required, and excludes a certain number of people whom there is no reason for excluding, while it admits many people who ought not to be admitted if any one is to be debarred. But the hardship or injustice affects individuals alone. No considerable cla.s.s in the community is aggrieved, and neither political party is now anxious to extend the franchise. The Conservatives are not by tradition in favour of such a course, and leading Liberals have come to realise that any further extension would be likely to benefit their opponents.

[Sidenote: Plural Voting.]

Although there is no urgent demand for a closer approach to manhood suffrage, there has long been a strong desire to restrict each man to a single vote. That a man should have a vote in two different const.i.tuencies is as clearly a breach of political equality as if he had two votes in the same place; and for this reason, as well as from the fact that most of the men who have more than one vote are Conservatives, a demand for the abolition of plural voting has been for many years an article in the Liberal programme. So far as the franchise is not dependent upon residence there is nothing to prevent a man from voting in every const.i.tuency where he possesses a qualification.[214:1] Now for the counties and the universities residence is not necessary; and even in the boroughs, where it is required, plural voting is restrained only in part, because a man may have more than one residence, and because residence within seven miles of the borough is enough, so that the men who carry on their business in the town and live in the suburbs are qualified in the borough by reason of their offices or workshops, and in a suburban borough or the county by reason of their dwellings.

It is not easy to determine how many persons are ent.i.tled to vote in more than one const.i.tuency, or how much they affect the result of elections. In a return of resident and non-resident voters made to Parliament in 1888,[214:2] it appeared, as was natural, that the proportion of the latter was greatest among the freeholders in the counties, nearly one quarter of whom were non-residents. In all there were about two hundred thousand non-resident voters in England and Wales. This is between four and five per cent. of the total electorate, which does not seem an important fraction; but it fails to express the full effect of plural voting, because it does not include the persons who have more than one residence, or who live outside the limits of a borough but within seven miles of it, or those again who reside in a borough that forms part of a county and are qualified to vote in both.

Moreover, the men with more than one vote, although a small proportion of the whole electorate of the kingdom, are quite numerous enough to turn the scale in a close const.i.tuency.

One of the first acts of the new Liberal ministry in the session of 1906, was to bring in a bill to abolish plural voting altogether. This could not be done simply by making residence a condition of the franchise, because in England a man may have more than one residence.

The measure provided, therefore, that the voter must elect in which of the places where he possessed a qualification he would be registered, and forbade him to vote anywhere else. The bill was pa.s.sed by the House of Commons, but rejected forthwith by the Lords.

[Sidenote: Number of Electors by Cla.s.ses.]

It is interesting to observe the number of voters registered under the different franchises. In 1906 the figures for the United Kingdom were as follows:--

Owners 579,827 Occupiers 6,357,817 Lodgers 226,191 Freemen, etc. 57,728 Univs. 45,150 --------- Total 7,266,706

By far the greater part of the voters are registered as occupiers, a cla.s.s which includes both the householders and the ten-pound occupiers.

The table contains a surprisingly small number of lodgers; and this is due to the fact that whereas the lists of owners and freemen are virtually permanent, and the list of occupiers is made up by the overseers of the poor from the rate-book,[216:1] a lodger alone must make every year a personal application to be registered.[216:2] The result is that no one seeks to be enrolled as a lodger if he has any other franchise; and no doubt many lodgers, who have no other qualification, neglect to register at all.

[Sidenote: Disqualifications for Voting.]

A characteristic, although not in itself a very important peculiarity of the English electoral law, is the rule depriving peers of the right to vote;[216:3] and in fact the Commons still profess to be highly jealous of any part taken in electoral campaigns by members of the House of Lords.[216:4] In other respects the disqualifications for voting in England are now much the same as in other countries. There are the usual rules excluding aliens, infants, idiots, paupers, convicts, and persons who have been guilty of corrupt practices at elections. Formerly there were also provisions excluding large cla.s.ses of public officers, but these have been repealed, except in the case of the Irish police, of certain officers directly concerned in the conduct of elections, and of persons employed and paid by the candidates.

Women cannot vote for members of Parliament, although they possess the franchise for almost all local elections. This question has of late aroused much interest. Although both of the political parties have at times adopted resolutions in favour of woman suffrage, the leading men in both are divided about it, and the Labour Party may be said to be the only political organisation of men in England that want it heartily. But many women are agitating for it very vigorously, and the most enthusiastic of them have sought martyrdom by refusing to pay taxes, by creating a disturbance in the ladies' gallery of the House of Commons, and by getting arrested for speech-making in the Palace Yard. They are known as Suffragettes, and evidently have faith in the old adage that Parliament never redresses grievances until they are brought forcibly to its notice. Women will no doubt ultimately obtain the suffrage if they are substantially united in wanting it, and the principle is certainly making great headway among them in England to-day.

[Sidenote: Registration.]

It is not enough that a man possesses the requisite qualifications for the franchise. His name must also be upon the register of voters for the const.i.tuency, and the process of compiling the register is c.u.mbrous and expensive. This is due in part to the complicated nature of the various franchises, which may involve intricate questions of law and of fact, and partly to the practice of leaving the duty of proving claims and objections mainly in the hands of private individuals. The lists are made up in the first instance by the overseers of the poor in each parish; but any person whose name is omitted may claim to have it inserted, and any person whose name is on the lists may file an objection to any other name which he thinks ought not to have been included. These claims and objections are heard in September by the Revising Barrister--a barrister of not less than seven years' standing, appointed for the purpose by the judge in whose circuit the const.i.tuency lies, and paid by the Treasury. It is his duty to revise the register by adding the names of persons who prove their claims, and by striking off names improperly inserted. In doing this he is not limited to names against which objections have been filed, for he has a right to make inquiries and summon witnesses on his own motion.[217:1] In practice, however, the cases are prepared beforehand, and argued before him, by the local agents of the two political parties, whose object is to get the names of their partisans on to the register and keep off those of their opponents.

The process is repeated every year, and the work and cost involved are considerable, the money being provided by the candidate for Parliament, or by means of subscriptions to the party funds. This is one of the things that makes elections expensive; and it helps to explain the desire of each party in a const.i.tuency to have a candidate at all times, even when an election is not impending. In Scotland registration is far less of a burden upon the parties, and costs the candidate very little, because the qualifications of all the voters, except the lodgers, are investigated by a public officer, called the a.s.sessor, and a corps of a.s.sistants, with the result that there are few claims or objections for the political agents to contest. There seems to be no self-evident reason why this should not be done everywhere, and for every cla.s.s of voter.

FOOTNOTES:

[195:1] This feeling was forcibly expressed by G.o.dkin in his essay on "The Decline of Legislatures."

[196:1] This is elaborately discussed by Charles Benoist, _La Crise de l'etat Moderne_.

[197:1] For "keeping one's name on the books" the university sometimes requires a fee which diminishes seriously the number of graduates ent.i.tled to vote either for Parliament or on academic questions. In Cambridge, for example, the electors are only about one half the graduates.

[197:2] For England, 2 Will. IV., c. 45. For Scotland, 2-3 Will. IV., c.

65. For Ireland 2-3 Will. IV., c. 88.

[198:1] Scotland obtained eight additional members, and Ireland five.

[199:1] In several cases small Scotch counties are combined in pairs for the election of a single member, but this antedated the Act of 1885.