328 



GREAT BRITAIN. 



ers, and other particulars in regard to registra- 

 tion and the polling of the votes. It was also 

 provided that successive occupation of different 

 premises in a borough, if continuous, and of 

 sufficient rental value, should have the same 

 effect in qualifying a voter as the continuous 

 occupation of the same premises for a twelve- 

 month ; and that in counties, joint occupation 

 of premises whose ratable value was sufficient 

 to give a vote to each occupier, should not pre- 

 vent two persons who were joint occupiers, or 

 more if in partnership or connected by blood 

 or marriage, from voting. The boroughs of 

 Totness, Reigate, Great Yarmouth, and Lancas- 

 ter, were disfranchised and prohibited from 

 returning any member of Parliament hereafter, 

 in consequence of having been guilty of cor- 

 rupt practices, bribery, etc., etc. This gave 

 seven members to be distributed among new 

 boroughs; and the restriction of all boroughs 

 of less than 10,000 inhabitants to one member, 

 added 38 more for a new distribution, making 

 45 in all. Of these 25 were given to the 

 larger counties, which were divided into two or 

 more districts for this purpose : 19 were given 

 to'the boroughs, 11 of them to new boroughs, 

 and 8 as additional members of large boroughs 

 or cities, and one member was given to the 

 University of London. Persons employed in 

 any capacity for reward, in connection with 

 any election, were prohibited from voting, and 

 severe penalties were to be inflicted on those 

 who were guilty of bribery, either directly or 

 indirectly. 



The amendments made by the House of 

 Lords in regard to the representation of mi- 

 norities were as follows : " At a contested elec- 

 tion for any county or borough represented by 

 three members, no person shall vote for more 

 than two candidates." " At a contested elec- 

 tion for the city of London, no person shall vote 

 for more than three candidates." 



It was further provided that the demise of 

 the crown should not dissolve Parliament, and 

 that members holding offices of profit from the 

 crown should not be required to vacate their 

 seats on acceptance of another office. 



The Reform Acts for Scotland and Ireland, 

 passed in the session of 1868, differed in some 

 important respects from that of England. By 

 the act for Scotland, the franchise in burghs 

 was conferred upon every male person of full 

 age, and subject to no legal incapacity, who had 

 been for twelve months an occupier, as owner 

 or tenant, of any dwelling, unless at any time 

 during that period he shall have been exempted 

 from the poor-rates on the ground of poverty, 

 or shall have failed to pay his poor-rates, or 

 shall have been in the receipt of parochial re- 

 lief within twelve months. The lodger fran- 

 chise in Scotland consists in the permission of 

 any lodger to vote who has occupied, in the 

 same burgh separately, and as sole tenant, for 

 twelve months, a lodging of the clear annual 

 value, if let unfurnished, of ten pounds or up- 

 ward, and has claimed to be registered as a 



voter. In Scottish counties the ownership 

 franchise is five pounds, clear of any deduction 

 in the shape of burdens, with a residential 

 qualification of not less than six months. The 

 Reform Act for Ireland, which was not passed 

 until July, 1868, made no alteration in the 

 county franchise, but reduced that of boroughs 

 to a 4 rating occupation, with the same quali- 

 fications as in England. 



The Reform Bill of 1867-'68 left in force all 

 the old legal requirements for electors. Under 

 these, aliens, persons under twenty-one years 

 of age, or of unsound mind, or convicted of 

 felony, and undergoing a term of imprisonment, 

 were incapable of voting. No one could be a 

 member of Parliament who had not attained to 

 the age of twenty-one years ; and no excise, 

 custom, stamp, or other revenue officer, nor, 

 since 1840, any judges, except the Master of the 

 Rolls, were eligible to election. No English or 

 Scotch peer can be elected to the House of 

 Commons, but Irish peers are eligible. No 

 foreigners, even when naturalized, unless the 

 right be conceded in express terms, and no 

 persons convicted of treason or felony, are eli- 

 gible for seats in Parliament. The number of 

 members of the House of Commons has been, 

 since 1817, 658, and has varied very little from 

 that number during the present century. 



As, by the provisions of the Reform Act, a 

 new Parliament was to be elected in the au- 

 tumn of 1868, it was very naturally the desire 

 of Mr. Disraeli to so conduct the Government 

 as to secure from the new members, when 

 they should be elected, a decided majority in 

 his favor. He found this, however, a task be- 

 yond his powers. The passage of the Reform 

 Act had alienated many of the older and more 

 rigid Conservatives, but had perhaps given him 

 a popular following of equal numbers from 

 some of the quasi-Liberals ; but in the new 

 measures which came up in the session of 1868 

 he was destined to find the elements of his 

 defeat. The war in Abyssinia had been con- 

 ducted to a successful close, with the storm- 

 ing of Theodorus's capital and the death of the 

 king of the kings of Ethiopia himself (see 

 ABYSSINIA and THEODOEUS), and the eclat aris- 

 ing from this seemed at first to be sufficient to 

 carry the Disraeli ministry over the perils of a 

 new election. But a new apple of discord was 

 thrown into Parliament by the great Liberal 

 leader, Mr. Gladstone, on the 30th of March, 

 1868, by the introduction of a resolution for 

 the disestablishment of the Irish Church. The 

 great bulk of the population of Ireland is 

 Roman Catholic; 4,505,265 of the 5,764,543 

 inhabitants in 1861 belonging to that faith, 

 while of the remainder, 691,872 were reckoned 

 as belonging to the Established Church of Ire- 

 land (Episcopal), and the rest, almost 600,000, 

 were Protestant dissenters. Yet the British 

 Government has maintained the Established 

 Church of Ireland, having less than one-eighth 

 of the population among its adherents, and 

 endowed it with revenues amounting to 580,- 



