Note (Back) — Chapter IV

91. The Franchise as It Is.—By the measures of 1884 and 1885 the House of Commons was placed upon a broadly democratic basis. Both measures stand to-day upon the statute-books, and neither has been amended in any important particular. With respect to the existing franchises there are two preponderating facts. One of them is that individuals, as such, do not possess the privilege of voting; on the contrary, the possession of the privilege is determined all but invariably in relation to the ownership or occupation of property. The other is that the franchise system, while substantially uniform throughout the kingdom, is none the less the most complicated in Europe. There are three important franchises which are universal and two which are not. In the first group are included: (1) occupancy, as owner or tenant, of land or tenement of a clear yearly value of £10; (2) occupancy, as owner or tenant, of a dwelling-house, or part of a house used as a separate dwelling, without regard to its value; and (3) occupancy of lodgings of the value, unfurnished, of £10 a year. The two franchises which are not universal are (1) ownership of land of forty shillings yearly value or occupation of land under certain other specified conditions—this being applicable only to counties and, to a small extent, to boroughs which are counties in themselves; and (2) residence of freemen in those towns in which they had a right to vote prior to 1832. The conditions and exceptions by which these various franchises are attended are so numerous that few people in England save lawyers make a pretense of knowing them all, and the volume of litigation which arises from the attempted distinction between "householder" and "lodger," and from other technicalities of the subject, is enormous. Voters must be twenty-one years of age, and there are several complicated requirements in respect to the period of occupation of land and of residence, and likewise in respect to the fulfillment of the formalities of registration.[123] There are also various incidental disqualifications. No peer, other than a peer of Ireland who is in possession of a seat in the House of Commons, may vote; persons employed as election agents, canvassers, clerks, or messengers may not vote, nor may the returning officers of the constituencies, save when necessary to break a tie between two candidates; and aliens, felons, and, under stipulated conditions, persons in receipt of public charity, are similarly debarred. In the aggregate, however, the existing franchises approach measurably near manhood suffrage. It has been computed that the ratio of electors to population is approximately one in six, whereas, the normal proportion of males above the age of twenty-one, making no allowance for paupers, criminals, and other persons commonly disqualified by law, is somewhat less than one in four. The only classes of adult males at present excluded regularly from the voting privilege are domestic servants, bachelors living with their parents and occupying no premises on their own account, and persons whose change of abode periodically deprives them of a vote.