ESTABLISHED 1866. The Marlborough Express PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. FRIDAY, JANUARY 24, 1913. THE BRITISH FRANCHISE BILL

Marlborough Express, Volume XLVII, Issue 20, 24 January 1913, Page 4

ESTABLISHED 1866. The Marlborough Express PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. FRIDAY, JANUARY 24, 1913. THE BRITISH FRANCHISE BILL

•- «♦• < Despite all the strenuous opposition and harsh words inside ana outside the House of Commons, the British Liberal Government pushes on : steadily with its reform measures. Special and reaily excellent progress has been made during the past few , months. The Insurance ±Siil has been placed on the Statute Book, and is now in actual operation; the Welsh Church Disestablishment Bill is through the worst part of its course : towards the House of Lords; and now the question of electoral reform, the j question of all questions of most; importance to the Liberal party and i its future, is being tackled most) vigorously. It is true that there is | a nasty "snag" in the shape of the j Women's Suffrage question raised by \ Sir Edward Grey by his amendment ■ omitting the word ''male"; but this f, once got. over, the measure should | niakei good progress, and be placed on the Statute Book long before another general election may be forced on the country by the rejection of the Irish Home iiule Bill by the members of the hereditary branch of the Legislature. The Franchise Bill may not go quite so far as some well-wishers, of the cause of electoral reform in .the Mother Country would have wished it to go; but when once in operation it cannot fail to place a vastly extended power in the hands of the British people, and to nullify to a quite appreciable extent the reactionary influence and power of the Tories. The principal provisions, roughly and briefly summarised, are one man, one vote, one qualification —adult age and a six months' continuous residence or occupation. Change of constituency will not entail a loss of voting power even for a day, and, the property qualification is swept away altogether, also plural voting of any kind. Permanent registers are to be kept, provision being; made . for monthly revisions. It is, of course, to be regretted that the great reforms now proposed are not to be accompanied by a wiselyplanned redistribution scheme, by State payment—as is the case in the Dominion—of legitimate election expenses, and by some system/either a modification of the second ballot scheme or by proportional representation, under which Members of Parliament could not be, as they are too often at present, representative only 6f a minority of the voters in their electorates. Mr Asquith has, however, acted wisely, and certainly in accordance with the traditions of British legislative changes, in "hastening slowly," and in "breaking gently," as it were, some very necessary reforms. The carrying into ; effect of '&c "one man, one vote" j principle yfill be "an immense stride in reform advance. I Naturally, the Tory Party stand! aghast at the probability of their old ! much-tried and greatly valued weapon, plural voting, being ruthlessly 'destroyed, as at jwill be by Mi* Asquith's measure. But that the time was ripe for such a reform j all know full well who are acquainted j with what is positively the most; idiotic system of franchise now exisii-. j ing iv Great Britain. Brains, intex- j licence, education, high patriotism, ; public service—all these count as nothing under the , plural voting system as against wealth, as against "proputty, proputty." The Tories are making a great to-do about the alleged disfranchisement of the City of London. But when the facts are examined they have no real griev- . ance. The City of London consists ■ of a ridiculously small area in the heart of London, an area almost solely occupied by business premi&es, warehouses, offices, and banks, the persons owning or employed in which mostly live in the suburbs or in the country; indeed, the actual residential population of "the City" is quite absurdly small. The residential qualification and the abolition of plural voting will, of course, take away one vote from the persons Avho, owning city properties, live else-.! where. In future they will hay a vote for the electorate in which they reside, that is all. But they will not be disfranchised- Mr Balfour waxes quite pathetically indignant over the alleged disappearance, under the residential qualification, "of all the characteristic institutions of the City." This is simply "bunkum," for with such "characteristic institutions" as are centred in the little area of the City, the City Members have as much to do personally as the man in the moon. The i iconclastic Lloyd George does not propose to blow up the Mansion House, the Guildhall, or even the Monument; Lord Mayor's Show will still be held; the City Companies will still hold gorgeous banquets and spend huge sums in guzzling real turtle soup and swilling Dry Monopole out of the funds which have accumulated from foundations and endowments made in the Middle Ages for the benefit of the poor. True, a. large number of ( stockbrokers, many of them gentle- ; men whose names suggest the titles on Rhine wine bottles, may not be able to .vote once "in the City"—for a small office off Lombard Street—and ! then vote again for the suburban - electorate in which they reside, and ; ! perhaps a third time for their weekend country house in yet a third electorate. One man, one vote—with I the residential.clause—will stop that, i Bat why should "all the characteris- • tio institutions of the City vanish" j simply because Mr Solomon Isaacs ) Neidnerhaustein, of Stock and Share Alley, or Bear and Bull Court, cannot vote for good Mr Balfour in the City of London, and then record his faith in "true blue Toryism" by voting for one of Mr Balfour's political friends in the suburbs, and yet another of them in, say, a Surrey or Sussex electorate? Then, again; there will be a squeak and a whine because of the fact that the nine university j constituencies are to be abolished. The special representation of universities has nothing whatever to justify it. The Oxford don who has voted I for Oxford University and for Oxford j City as well, will now vote only for I the latter. This plural voting, what- j ever form it assumed, was all in favor |! of the wealthy and privileged classes and all against the interests and * '

rights of the democracy—of the people as a whole. When a time-honored abuse is abolished there there will always be found some people to regret its disappearance. But it has got to go all the same. With reeard to S

- iega*. ir .cxiwaiv reys amendment and the women's franchise question generally, alarmist ! rumors seem to be abroad"that opposi- • tion to women's franchise may yet in- ■ duce certain Liberals to "turn dog" on their party and vote against the third reading of the Bill should Sir Edward Grey's amendment be carried. But there were, similar rumors :of "deadly splits" when the Insurance Bill was first brought forward, and yet the Bill is now the law of the land, and the Liberal party is still intact. Dissension there clearly is, and even should the amendment be

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carried the matter will not end there, for other amendments, some of them raising questions very difficult of settlement, will have to be disposed of. If there is women's franchise it must be on democratic lines, not merely a property franchise. On the broad question of the equal right of a 1 woman to vote with a man, we have never varied our opinion, and not all the stupidities and crimes of the ex- ; tremists in the Suffragette camp, ,: much as we may deplore them, alter the one central all-dominant fact that ,! in simple equity an adult woman has , ; just as good a right to a vote as a i male adult. But it would never do ■ | to have a "one man one vote" and ac- , i company it by a female franchise based , I entirely or even partially on a proi perty qualification. And yet that, so ,I it is an open secret, is the ambition .[ of many of the high-born dames who [ ; have taken part in the Suffragette [ campaign. Sooner or later every > Englishwoman, no matter how poor > and humble her position, will have a . vote, just as will every Englishman, r If the Liberals are wise they will give L that vote to the women now whilst , they have the chance of so doing. > Otherwise, when the Tories next come [ into power, they will once again I "dish the Whigs" by granting the de- > sired boon and establishing a big L claim to woman's gratitude i r