further restricted in modern times by the practical necessities for annual Parliaments for the purpose of voting supplies.

In the middle of the eighteenth century an Act was passed with regard to the qualification of voters, which has been made a precedent for much subsequent legislation, that is to say, in 1755, twelve months' possession was made a qualification for the freeholders county vote-a period reduced to six months' by the Reform Act, 1832.

con

Grenville's An important alteration in the procedure for trying the Act, 1770. validity of elections was effected in 1770 by "Grenville's Act," which was at first temporary, and was made perpetual in 1773. In early times, the remedy for a false return or an undue election was of an uncertain kind. At one time the question was considered within the competence of the Lord Chancellor, through whom the writ issued. By 11 Hen. 4, c. 1, contested returns were to be inquired into by the Justices of Assize, a curious precedent for the tribunal now existing. Since, however, the discussions in Ashby v. White, and for a long time previously, the House of Commons had asserted the right to inquire into all matters relating to its own stitution for itself. The claim to prevent the House of Lords determining matters affecting its privileges in an ordinary legal action must, however, be considered abandoned, except that it is still partly recognized by appeals in election petitions, and in registration cases to the House of Lords being still denied. For a long time previously to Grenville's Act, the jurisdiction to decide on the validity of returns had been exercised by the whole House, and the divisions upon disputed points, such as the qualification of voters in a borough in question, took place upon party lines. The abuses of this practice were checked by the Act of 2 Geo. 2, c. 2, which provided that the last decision of the House of Commons should be conclusive as to the right of election, and by Grenville's Act the jurisdiction on controverted elections was transferred to a sworn committee of fifteen members. The main ground of questioning returns in early times was the partiality or negligence of sheriffs; but as a seat became a desirable object, cases of bribery occur. The first recorded case was in 1571, when Thomas Long, "being a very simple man, and of small capacity, bought a seat for Westbury for £4 of the Mayor." In the second year of George II., an Act (2 Geo. 2, c. 24), for the more effectual prevention of bribery and corruption, was passed; but little other legislation of this kind took place until after the Reform Act.

Reform

In 1829 Roman Catholics were admitted to sit and vote, having been previously debarred indirectly only, but effectually, by a form of oath which Roman Catholics could not take.

The Reform Act of 1832 consists of two parts, one dealing Act, 1832. with electoral areas, and the other with the qualification of electors. As regards electoral areas, it was provided that 56

boroughs therein named, as Old Sarum, Winchelsea, and Fowey, returning theretofore two members apiece, should cease to return any member; that 30 boroughs therein named, as Petersfield, Calne, and Rye, should return one member instead of two; that 22 boroughs, as Manchester, Birmingham, and Leeds, should for the first time return two members; that 20 boroughs, as Cheltenham, Salford, and Whitby, should for the first time return one member; and that certain places in Wales, as Tenby, Swansea, and Neath, should share in electing members with the shire towns. By the same Act, 25 counties, as Cheshire, Lancashire, and Shropshire, which theretofore returned two members apiece only, were divided, and two members given to each division; while 7 counties, as Berkshire and Oxfordshire, obtained three members instead of two, and the Welsh counties of Carmarthen, Denbigh, and Glamorgan, obtained two members instead of one.

A greater revolution still was effected in the law of the qualification of electors. The right of voting in counties, previously possessed by freeholders alone, was extended not only to leaseholders holding at a rent of £10 if the lease were for sixty, and at a rent of £50 if the lease were for twenty years, but also by the clause termed the Chandos clause, to tenant occupiers holding at a rent of £50; and the right of voting in boroughs was given to all occupiers of houses, shops, or buildings of any kind of the annual value of £10. By way of restriction of the freeholders' qualification, it was further enacted that if the freehold should be for a life only, either the voter should be required to be in actual occupation, or the freehold itself should be required to be of the annual value of £10, an enactment of which the full legal effect was not discovered until 1884, when the High Court decided, in the case of Druitt Christ Church Overseers, that a rent-charge could not be "occupied," and therefore came within the first alternative of its provisions. By way of restriction of the borough qualification it was expressly provided, in imitation of the practice of committees of the House of Commons, that the receipt of parochial relief should constitute a disqualification of the borough electors-a restriction applied by statute to counties by the Act of 1867.

v.

By the Reform Act 1832, also, the registration of electors was first made a condition precedent of the right to vote. Prior to the Act, the title of each elector to vote, if questioned, was determined at the poll by the returning officer, and this was one of the principal reasons why the poll was kept open so long. A set of rather complex provisions of the Act contained the means whereby firstly, through the action of the overseers of the poor in each parish; secondly, through claims and objections by the parties themselves and their political opponents; and thirdly, by itinerant Revision Courts, presided over by revising barristers, appointed annually for the purpose, a comprehensive

b

Registration
Act, 1843.

Corrupt Practices Act, 1854.

Register of Electors should be established in every county and borough. The appointment of revising barristers was no doubt suggested by the practice of the returning officer having been not uncommonly in the habit of being advised by counsel at the poll upon any title to vote being there questioned. With regard to the mode of election, it was provided that polls, which at common law might be kept open for a time practically limited only by the power of the purse of the contending parties, should be kept open for two days only—a period afterwards further limited for boroughs by an Act of 1836, 5 & 6 Will. 4, c. 36; and for counties by an Act of 1853, 16 and 17 Vict. c. 15, to one day only.

The Registration provisions of the Act of 1832 were not only incomplete in detail and difficult of comprehension, but also allowed the correctness of the register to be questioned before a committee of the House of Commons, and left it open to persons, whose names had been struck off from the register by the revising barrister, to tender their votes at elections. In 1843 the Parliamentary Registration Act repealed and re-enacted these provisions with considerable amendments, of which the most important was that which allowed an appeal from the revising barristers on points of law to the Court of Common Pleas, and notwithstanding a vigorous protest from Lord John Russell, made the decisions of that Court binding upon the House of Commons Committees, it being provided at the same time that the register should be conclusive against the claim to vote of any person not registered. There were also set on foot two forms of precept, to be directed by the clerks of the peace and the town clerks to the overseers in counties and boroughs respectively, explaining or attempting to explain in detail to these officials what they had to do, and when and how they were to do it.

In 1854 the Corrupt Practices Prevention Act consolidated the Acts in force relating to bribery, treating, and undue influence at elections, and also amended the law by supplying more comprehensive definitions of these offences, and by increasing the punishment for them, while occasion was taken to prohibit the gift of flags, music, and ribbons, and similar electioneering expenses, as well as to declare what had been theretofore doubtful, that refreshments to voters on the days of nomination or polling were absolutely illegal. This Act was, and still is, temporary only.

In 1858 the property qualification of members was abolished by the repeal of the Acts from 9 Anne, c. 5, to 41 Geo. 3, c. 101, which had established or regulated such qualification, and in the same year persons professing the Jewish religion, who had never been debarred from voting, and who had been only indirectly, though effectually, debarred from sitting by a form of oath which such persons could not take, were admitted to sit by being allowed to take an oath omitting the words "upon the true faith of a Christian."

In 1865 the County Voters Registration Act amended the law of registration in counties by providing a new form of precept from the clerk of the peace to the overseers, and by enacting that every notice of objection to a claim to vote should specify the grounds of the objection. Provisions applicable to borough as well as county revisions were added, to the effect that costs might be given by a revising barrister up to £5, instead of up to 408. only, as under the Act of 1843, and that names expunged and inserted at the revision should be read out in open court.

The Representation of the People Act, 1867, like its predecessor, Representation the Reform Act of 1832, dealt both with electoral areas and with Act, 1867. the qualification of electors in one statute, the part relating to the qualification of electors being by far the more important. No existing qualification was abolished; but in counties the qualification for a vote of owners for a life and of leaseholders was cut down from £10 to £5; and a £12 occupation qualification was introduced; while in boroughs two most important qualifications being (1) by the occupation of a dwelling-house of any value, commonly called "household suffrage ;" and (2) by the occupation of lodgings of £10 yearly value (unfurnished), were introduced. The dwelling-house qualification in boroughs, and the £12 occupation qualification in counties being both made strictly dependent upon rating and the payment of rates, it was provided that the system of allowing owners to be rated instead of occupiers, which had grown up under 14 and 15 Vict. c. 99, commonly called the "Small Tenements Act," and other Acts, should cease, but this method of universally enforcing the condition was found so inconvenient that the Poor Rate Assessment and Collection Act, 1869, 32 and 33 Vict. c. 41, re-introduced the old system under a new procedure, which made voluminous but not very intelligible provisions for the constructive rating of the occupier for the purpose of gaining the electoral qualification. The disqualification for parochial relief was also, for the first time by express statute, applied to counties.

As regards electoral areas, the Act of 1867 deprived no borough of direct representation altogether, but took away one member from all the thirty-eight boroughs, such as Stamford, Lewes, and Bridgnorth, having a less population than 10,000 at the census of 1861. Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham, and Leeds gained an additional member apiece, ten new boroughs returning one member each, except Chelsea, which obtained two, were created, and thirteen counties were further divided.

A new and peculiar provision enacted that at a contested election for any county or borough represented by three members, no person should vote for more than two candidates, a provision which has ceased to operate by virtue of the Redistribution of Seats Act, 1885, although it has not been expressly repealed.

In 1868 the trial of election petitions, which had been

delegated by Grenville's Act by the House of Commons to Select Committees, was transferred to Judges of the Common Law Courts, now the Queen's Bench Division, the trial to take place before one Judge, a number which was altered in 1879 to two Judges.

In 1872 the Ballot Act introduced an entirely new mode of nominating candidates, of conducting elections, and of voting. Prior to that Act, nominations were made at the " hustings,' erected for the purpose in a public and open place by public speeches of the supporters of each candidate, and the choice of the electors was ascertained in the first place by a show of hands, the defeated candidate usually, but not by any means invariably, demanding a poll, which was conducted by each elector openly stating his name, and that of the candidate for whom he desired to vote, to a poll-clerk at the polling-booths, the poll-books being commonly afterwards printed at the cost of one or other of the parties. The Ballot Act completely changed all this by requiring nomination in writing by ten registered electors, and poll by secret voting, taken by means of a ballot paper, to be marked by a simple x by each elector.

The Act was temporary only, and expired in 1880, since which time it has been continued by successive "Expiring Laws Continuance Acts" annually passed.

In 1875 the charges which a returning officer might make for nomination papers, ballot boxes, clerical assistance, and other expenditure incidental to the preparations for and conduct of an election, were regulated by a schedule annexed to that Act, and it was also provided that the returning officer might require securities from a candidate before accepting his nomination.

In 1878 the Parliamentary and Municipal Registration Act provided for the contemporaneous revision by the same revising barristers in "every parliamentary borough, and in every municipal borough the whole or part of the area whereof is included in the area of a parliamentary borough," of the lists of electors for the municipal borough, theretofore revised by the mayor and revising assessors, and of the lists of electors for the parliamentary boroughs. At the same time the borough qualifications generally were widened and explained by providing that the separate occupation of part of a house or dwelling-house should be sufficient, and that the lodger qualification might be gained by the successive occupation of lodgings in the same dwelling-house, and also by a joint occupation with one other lodger. A new precept and a new set of forms were provided, and the procedure in the Courts of Revision was extensively amended by the direction, amongst others, that the burden of proof was always to be upon the party objecting to a vote, unless he should be an overseer.

The Corrupt and Illegal Practices Prevention Act, 1883, still further increased the penalties attaching to bribery and