created for a term of at least 14 years, of the clear yearly value of 20 pounds sterling.1

If the individual owns no such interest in real estate, he must have occupied, for twelve months before registration for any election, lands or tenements within the county or borough in which he registers, of the yearly value of 10 pounds sterling. He must have resided, if registering in an English borough, during six months of the year previous to registry, in the borough or within seven miles of it; if regis tering in a Scotch borough, the whole year. He must have paid his poor rates, due in respect to such premises before a certain date, upon the 5th of the previous January in England, upon the 15th of the previous May in Scotland, and upon the Ist of the previous January in Ireland; and if the lands or tenements lie within an English or Scotch borough, he must have paid all other taxes due up to a certain date in the twelve months preceding the election.2

Or he must be an inhabitant, occupier of a dwelling-house, or a part of a house arranged as a separate dwelling, which dwelling must have been rated and the rates paid up to a certain date within the twelve months previous to the election.3

Or he must have been a lodger, for twelve months previous to a certain date within the twelve months previous to the election, in the same house; and his lodgings, unfurnished, must be of the clear yearly value of ten pounds sterling.

Or he must be a freeman of a town which, previous to the year 1832, could confer suffrage in that manner, i.e. by making one a freeman; but he must at present have acquired his freedom by birth or servitude, and must have resided for the twelve months previous to registration for an election within at least seven miles of the town.5

1 Anson, Law and Custom of the Constitution, p. 104.

8 Ibid. p. 104 ff.

▲ Ibid. p. 105 ff.

2 Ibid. p. 104 ff.

5 Ibid. p. 107.

Or he must be a liveryman of one of the city companies of the city of London.1

Or, lastly, he must be a member of the governing body of the University of Oxford, or Cambridge, or London, or Edinburgh, or St. Andrews, or Aberdeen, or Glasgow, or Dublin.2

In addition to these qualifications, we must allude briefly to the many disqualifications before we can claim to have anything like a complete view of the very complex law of suffrage out of which the lower house of the British legislature proceeds.3

Possession of a peerage is a disqualification, except in the case of the holder of an Irish peerage, who has been already elected and is serving as a member of the House of Commons. The holding of police office or of office concerned with elections is a disqualification. Unsoundness of mind also disqualifies. Conviction of treason or felony disqualifies until the punishment is served or pardon obtained. Conviction of corrupt practices at an election disqualifies for seven years. The receiving of parochial relief during the twelve months preceding the last day of July previous to any election is a disqualification to vote at that election. Joint tenancy is a disqualification as to all but one where all rest upon the tenancy to qualify, unless the tenancy "has been acquired by descent, marriage, marriage settlement or will, or is in the actual occupation of the owner for the purpose of carrying on trade or business." Joint occupation of lands and tenements in counties is also a disqualification as to all but two, where all rest upon the occupation to qualify, unless the occupation has been acquired in the same manner as described for joint tenancy.

This is a very confusing system, and gives rise to many difficulties in its application to concrete cases. It is a prod uct of history, and a very irregular one. It is hardly re

1 Anson, Law and Custom of the Constitution, p. 107.

garded by anybody as definitive. It is already radical enough to bring great strain upon the constitution, and yet not radical enough to be logical and uniform.

The sources from which the membership of the upper house proceeds are, as I have already indicated, four in number, vis; inheritance, election, royal appointment and ecclesiastical office.

Any person whose ancestor sat in Parliament for England, by virtue of a royal summons, issued since 1295, or thereabout, has the hereditary right to a seat in the House of Lords,1 or rather the hereditary right to be summoned to that House. The word ancestor in this connection must be taken in its public law meaning. It does not mean that all the descendants of an ancestor who sat in Parliament by royal writ have this right; the right pertains to that one only upon whom, by the law of descent regulating the transmission of this right, the inheritance may, at the given time, have fallen. This law is primogeniture with preference of the male line and abeyance of the right to sit in Parliament during the time that there is no male heir, i.e. transmission of the right by females, but no exercise of it save by males.2 Sixteen persons whose ancestors sat in the House of Lords in the Scotch Parliament, by virtue of royal writs of summons, before the union of this Parliament with the English Parliament, and who are chosen by a majority of all the persons upon whom, at any given moment, this inheritance has fallen, have the right to seats in the House of Lords during the existence of the Parliament for which they are chosen. This electoral right must have been exercised, however, since the year 1800; otherwise it is lost.4 Twenty-eight persons

whose ancestors sat in the House of Lords of the Irish Par

1 Stubbs, Constitutional History of England, vol. ii, pp. 203, 204.

2 Encyclopædia Britannica, vol. xviii, Art. Peerage, p. 467.

8 Anson, Law and Custom of the Constitution, p. 170.

4 Statutes of Parliament, 10 and 11 Victoria, c. 52.

liament before the union of that body with the English Parliament, and who are chosen by a majority of all the persons upon whom, at any given moment, this inheritance has fallen, have the right to seats for life in the House of Lords of the Parliament of the United Kingdom.1 The words ancestor and inheritance must be taken in these cases in the same sense as in the first case.

Any person summoned by royal writ at the pleasure of the Crown has the right to a seat in the House of Lords for his own life with transmission of the same to his heirs ; 2 but such person cannot under any conditions have a seat in the body of Scotch peers who elect the sixteen representatives of that body to the House of Lords, and he cannot have a seat in the body of Irish peers who elect the twenty-eight representatives of that body to the House of Lords, unless he be one of those persons who shall have been appointed by the Crown, in accordance with the act of union between Ireland and Great Britain, to Irish peerages in lieu of Irish peerages becoming extinct.3

Two persons, eventually four, may be appointed by the Crown to seats in the House of Lords for life or so long as they discharge the judicial duties devolving upon them as Lords of Appeal in Ordinary.4

Two archbishops and twenty-four bishops have the right to seats in the House of Lords by virtue of their ecclesiastical office.5

The law of elections is in all respects statutory. The law of inheritance and appointment, as the source of legislative mandate, is also statutory in the sense that it is subject to modification, change and even abolition by statute.

The custom of the constitution does not secure to each

5

Anson, Law and Custom of the Constitution, pp. 170, 197 ff.

4 Statutes of Parliament, 39 and 40 Victoria, c. 59.

house complete independence in passing upon the credentials of its members. The power to determine questions of disputed elections, claimed and exercised by the House of Commons from 1604 to 1868, was assigned by statute to the Court of Common Pleas, and is now exercised by the Queen's Bench division of the High Court; while the House of Lords has no right to decide the claims to an old peerage unless upon reference of the case from the Crown.2 In all other cases it may pass upon the credentials of its members. 3. The Principle of Representation in the Parliament.

Each house rests upon its own principle, so that the exact title of this section would be the principles of representation in the Parliament. Furthermore, we find more than one principle applied in the representation of each house.

In the Commons, the ancient principle was the distribution of the representation by royal charters or franchises among the organized communities, i.e. the counties, the cities, the boroughs and the universities, two members for each. This equality of representation among the communities, originally regarded as just in the main, began in the course of time to be felt to be unjust. The doctrine of the French revolution, that the individual instead of the local organization is the unit. of politics, changed this feeling into a definite idea. The reform act of 1832 was the first great step towards the introduction of the new idea into practice. In this act Parliament asserted the exclusive right to distribute the representation. The power of the Crown to control the representation by the granting of charters and franchises to the local organizations was definitely and finally set aside. Still the Parliament did not, at that time, undertake to carry out the idea completely by basing representation upon numbers. It disfranchised those local organizations which had become depopulated and increased the representation from those which had become

1 Anson, Law and Custom of the Constitution, p. 150 ff.

2 Ibid. pp. 204, 205.