the reign of Anne,1 was continued down to 1838, when a new qualification of the same amount was substituted which could be made up either in real or personal property, or in both. In land qualifi1858 such property qualification was entirely abolished by a members statute repealing all acts upon the subject from 9 Anne, c. 5, to 41 Geo. III. c. 101. cation for abolished. bill of Russell in 1852 and 2. Just as the revolution that occurred in France in July, Reform 1830, revived the agitation that precipitated the enactment of 1867-68: the first reform bill of 1832, so that which occurred in Paris in 1848 seems to have rekindled the drooping interest in the subject that brought about the enactment of the second of 1867. The support given to the efforts made by Locke King and Mr. Baines in 1851 to lower both the county and borough franchises was sufficient to make Lord John Russell admit that his original scheme was neither perfect nor final; and measures proposed in the next year he brought in a new reform bill, designed to by Lord cure defects in that measure which had been emphasized by the great increase that had taken place in twenty years in the 1854; wealth, population, and industry of the country. And yet, so absorbed was the nation at that time in more pressing events that the measure of 1852, designed not only to extend existing franchises but to create a new one, together with another more comprehensive still introduced by Lord John in 1854, was postponed without action. When in 1859.the earl of Derby as Lord the leader of the conservative party made the next move by proposal in Derby's bringing forward a bill whose central idea was not to reduce 1859 to the borough franchise but to establish an identity of franchise identity of between county and town, he was met with opposition not only in his own ranks but by Lord John himself, whose main objection rested upon the apprehension that such a principle would lead in the end to electoral districts. That objection, together with two others, he embodied in an amendment, which after a long debate was carried by a majority of thirty-nine, a result that led at once to a dissolution of parliament and an appeal to the people. By the hostile verdict then rendered Lord Palmerston was inducted into office, and on March 1, 1860, Lord John as a member of his administration brought forward a 9 Anne, c. 5; 33 Geo. II. c. 15. 2 1 & 2 Vict. c. 48. 8 21 & 22 Vict. c. 26. 252, 971; Ibid., vol. cxxx. p. 49; Ibid., 5 Hans. Deb., 3d ser. vol. cliii. pp. Hans. Deb., 3d ser. vol. cxix. pp. 389-1157, 1301. establish an franchise; Lord Russell's 1860 to lower both borough his more limited proposal of 1866; reform measure which proposed to lower both the county and proposal in borough franchises, avowedly in the latter case for the benefit of the working classes, and to increase the representation of county and the counties and large cities without entirely disfranchising franchise; any of the smaller boroughs. But the measure failed to excite either enthusiasm or interest in or out of parliament, and under the pressure of more urgent affairs the bill was withdrawn, and thus further action was postponed until the death of Lord Palmerston in October, 1865, cast the premiership upon Earl Russell as the leader of the whigs and the champion of reform. Thus circumstanced, Lord John, with Mr. Gladstone at his side, resumed the task imposed both by honor and conscience; and in order to satisfy the long-deferred hopes of the more advanced members of the liberal party, he introduced early in the session of 1866 a reform bill, which contemplated only a reduction of the franchise, so designed as to add at least 400,000 voters to the registers, one half of whom were to be workingmen. The failure of the measure to embrace any provision for the redistribution of seats provoked, however, serious opposition, and upon an amendment designed to cure that defect the government escaped defeat by only five votes.2 In the face of an opposition made up not only of conservatives but of a strong body of the liberals themselves, who pretended to regard even this moderate measure as revolutionary, Earl Russell, with his party broken and disorganized, was forced to resign office, in order to make way for superseded the opponents of further reform under the lead of the earl of by her Derby, whose government found itself in a minority of seventy of Derby; in the house of commons. Not until that anomalous condition of things had been reached did the awakened spirit of democracy resolve through public agitation to force its opponents to grant what it had refused to aid its friends to secure. The Hyde Park Hyde Park riot of July 23, 1866, consequent upon the meetriot of July 23, 1866; ing organized by the Reform League as a demonstration in earl favor of an extension of the suffrage, clearly indicated the presence of the new impulse in favor of reform, and in response thereto the Derby ministry promptly indicated its pur 1 Hans. Deb., 3d ser. vol. clix. p. 226. 2 On May 7 a bill for the redistribution of seats and reform bills for Scot land and Ireland were introduced, but even that expedient did not save the original measure from defeat. pose to offer a satisfactory scheme not as a party measure, but as a compromise that could be accepted by all. That dexterous expedient, first outlined in vague resolutions introduced by Mr. Disraeli, was on March 18 introduced in the Disraeli's concrete form of a bill that finally passed into law, with the tation of aid of liberal votes, as the Representation of the People Act, the People 1867.1 Represen Act, 1867. one against in the reform; favor of classes county and In borough While parties were thus being played off one against the Parties other, the advanced reformers, who gave fresh emphasis to their played off demands by a second memorable meeting held in Hyde Park the other in May during the discussion upon the bill in question, were interest of able to press upon the more conservative element claims that could not otherwise have been enforced. Thus it was that by concessions the Representation of the People Act the electoral basis was made in greatly widened by an extension of the franchise to a large working section of the working classes. In the counties, while no both as to existing qualification was abolished, 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 added. the boroughs two most important qualifications were intro- franchises; duced by extending (1) what is commonly called "household suffrage" to the occupier of a dwelling-house of any value; (2) to the occupier of lodgings of £10 yearly value (unfurnished). As the dwelling-house qualification in boroughs and the £12 occupation qualification in counties were both made strictly dependent upon rating and the payment of rates, it was provided that the habit of permitting owners to be rated owners not instead of occupiers, which had grown up under the Small to be rated; Tenements Act and other acts, should cease. That part of the bill relating to electoral areas was less important. Al- change in though no borough was deprived altogether of direct represen- areas less tation, from thirty-eight, having less than 10,000 population, important; one member each was taken. The seats thus gained were redistributed by giving an additional member to Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham, and Leeds, a member each to ten new boroughs including Chelsea, that gained two, and the an experiremainder to thirteen counties that were further divided. A favor of novel and peculiar feature was then introduced, providing that elections; 1 For a more complete statement of the political history see May, Const. Hist., vol. i. pp. 450, 452, 456; vol. iii. electoral ment in minority extended at a contested election for any county or borough represented by three members no person should vote for more than three candidates,1an experiment in favor of minority elections. act of 1867 In 1868 the Representation of the People Act was extended to Scotland to Scotland by 31 and 32 Vict. c. 48; and to Ireland by 31 and 32 Vict. c. 49. After the acts thus extended were fully developed, they finally raised the electorate for the three kingdoms, including the universities, to a grand total of 3,183,5522 (1885), as against 1,370,793, the highest product (1868) of the reform measures of 1832. and Ireland; great increase in the electorate. Introduction of voting by ballot; the old system involved While the second reform bill made no direct change in electoral procedure, the widening of the electorate effected by it hastened the adoption of a measure that for forty years had been the subject of discussion as a political theory. From the earliest times nominations had been made at the "hustings in public speeches of the supporters of each candidate, and the choice of the electors was manifested in the first instance by show of hands, from which the apparently defeated candidate could appeal by demanding a poll, by means of which each elector was required to openly state his name together with that of his candidate to a poll-clerk, who recorded the result in the poll-books. In order to reduce the expense, and to rebribery, and strain the bribery and intimidation incident to that method of voting, — evils which tended to increase as the electoral system widened, the advanced liberals demanded the substitution of a new system of secret voting by ballot, a proposal for a long time resisted by Lord Palmerston and the more conservative element that followed after him. In 1870, however, a ballot bill was introduced in the house of commons as a government measure; and in the next year another was brought in and passed by that body, after prolonged discussion. As the bill reached the lords too late in the session for consideration, it was not until 1872 that the act was passed, generally known as the Ballot Act, "to amend the Law relating to Procedure expense, intimida tion; a ballot bill passed the commons in 1871; Ballot Act of 1872; at Parliamentary and Municipal Elections," by virtue of which the old method of voting at such elections was superseded, except as to the universities,1 by the new system requiring nominations in writing by ten registered electors, and a poll by secret voting taken by means of a ballot-paper, to be marked by a single X by each elector. Originally passed as a annually temporary measure to expire at the end of 1880, the Ballot Act has been continued by annual reënactments. reenacted. bills of tation of the Redistribu Seats Act, 3. The moment that the second reform bill was thus Reform rounded out and completed by the Ballot Act of 1872, a fresh 1884-85: demand for a still further extension of the electoral system arose whose war-cry was "equalization," equalization of the cry for "equalizafranchise in county and borough; equalization of the electoral tion;" areas by such a redistribution of seats as would place the county and borough voter upon an equal plane as to representation. Not, however, until 1884 was the political understanding reached which finally transformed that demand into law. Then it was that the house of lords agreed to pass the Repre- Represensentation of the People Act, 1884,2 upon the understanding People Act, that a Redistribution of Seats Act should be introduced in the 1884; lower house in 1885.3 Thus the subject of electoral qualifica- tion of tions and that of electoral areas were dealt with in separate 1885; bills, and not jointly as in the acts of 1832 and 1867. By the terms of the first act, which embraces not only England but the United Kingdom, and whose main object was to assimilate the qualification for the county vote with that already established for the borough vote, it was provided that exactly the same dwelling-house and lodgings qualification as county and borough that established in the boroughs by the act of 1867 should franchises confer the franchise in the counties. And in order to further assimilated. extend the uniformity, the county occupation qualification was reduced from £12 to £10, subject, however, to the diverse conditions of the qualifications which had been annexed in the case of boroughs by the act of 1832, and in the case of counties 1 As to their methods of voting, see Lely and Foulkes, Parl. Elec. and Reg. Acts, pp. 394, 411, 419, 424, 440. 2 48 Vict. c. 3. 8 48 & 49 Vict. c. 23. 4 Mention should here be made of the Registration Act, 1885 (48 Vict. c. 15), which is "a corollary of the Repre sentation of the People Act, 1884, as- |