resolutions were however negatived by 293 votes to 149.1 Two years later, when Prime Minister, Pitt again brought forward the question, this time by moving, on the 18th of April, 1785, for leave to introduce a bill 'to amend the representation of the people of England in Parliament.' He proposed the disfranchisement of 36 decayed boroughs, and the transfer of their 72 members to the counties and the metropolis-the county constituencies being at the same time enlarged by the admission of copyholders. The scats of four other small boroughs were to be obtained by purchase and bestowed upon populous towns; while ten close corporations were to be similarly induced to surrender their exclusive rights for the benefit of their fellowtownsmen. The Bill was, however, purely permissive in character. No boroughs were to be disfranchised unless with the consent of the proprietors; and as compensation to them the sum of £1,000,000 was to be immediately set aside to accumulate at compound interest until it should become an irresistible bait. This extraordinary proposal, which would have committed the State to the recognition of a saleable property in borough constituencies, was admitted by its author to be 'a tender part,' yet, in his opinion, 'a necessary evil, if any reform was to take place.' But the time was not yet ripe for Parliamentary reform. The House of Commons being indifferent to it, the public generally apathetic, and George III. distinctly adverse,3 Pitt's Reform Bill was negatived by a majority of 74. The matter was now allowed to drop, and the terror caused by the outbreak of the French Revolution some years later rendered all efforts at reform fruitless.

After the conclusion of the war in 1815 the question of The question

1 Annual Reg. 1782, Hist. p. 181; 1783, Hist. p. 176. Annual Reg. 1784-5, p. 189, and Spencer Walpole, Hist. of Eng. ii. 263. 3 Pitt having written to the King insinuating a fear lest the personal influence of the Crown should be employed to defeat the measure, George replied that out of personal regard,' he would avoid giving any opinion to anyone on the opening of the door to parliamentary reform, except to him;' but that he had ever thought it unfortunate that he [Pitt] had early engaged himself in this measure.' Tomline, Life of Pitt, (4th ed.) ii. 40.

revived after

the Peace of reform was revived. Thenceforward it was again and 1815. again brought before Parliament by Sir Francis Burdett, Lord John Russell, and others, until at length, under the Whig ministry of Lord Grey (who had advocated the cause of reform for forty years), the Reform Bill-after Passing of defeats in both Houses of Parliament, a dissolution, the resignation and recall of the ministry, and a threatened creation of peers by the King-was passed amidst the greatest popular excitement, and became an Act on the 7th of June, 1832.

the Reform

Act of 1832.

By this statute-'the Great Charter of 1832,' as it has been deservedly called-56 nomination or rotten boroughs, with less than 2000 inhabitants, and returning III members, were swept away. Thirty boroughs, having less than 4000 inhabitants, lost each a member, and two more were taken from Weymouth and Melcombe Regis. In this way 143 seats were obtained for distribution among the towns and counties requiring additional representation. Fortythree new boroughs were created, 22 of which, including metropolitan districts, received the privilege of returning two members, and 21 one member each. The number of county members for England and Wales was increased from 95 to 159, the larger counties being divided, and a third member being assigned to other important county constituencies. All narrow rights of election were set aside in boroughs, and a £10 householder qualification (subject to conditions as to residence and payment of rates) was established instead, while the county franchise was extended by the addition to the old forty-shilling freeholders of copyholders and leaseholders for terms of years, and of tenantsat-will paying a rent of £50 a year.?

In the same session Reform Acts were passed for Scotland and Ireland. The number of Scotch representatives, fixed by the Act of Union at 45, was increased to 53, of whom 30 were assigned to counties and 23 to cities and burghs. The county franchise was extended to all owners

1 Supra, p. 718.

2 2 & 3 Will. IV. c. 45.

of 'lands, houses, feu duties, or other heritable subjects,' of the yearly value of £10, and to certain classes of leaseholders, and the burgh franchise to all £10 householders.1

In Ireland several rotten boroughs had been disfran- Irish Reform chised at the time of the Union: the right of election Act, 1832. was now taken away from borough corporations, and vested in 10 householders. The qualification for the county franchise had been raised from 40s. to £10 freeholds by a measure passed at the same time as the Roman Catholic Emancipation Act in 1829, and intended as a protection against the influence of the Roman Catholic priests and agitators, who had ousted the Protestant landlords of their political influence over the poorer freeholders. By the present Act large additions were made to the county constituencies by the inclusion of certain classes of leaseholders and of £10 copyholders. The number of Irish representatives, fixed by the Act of Union at 100, was increased to 103.3

By the Reform Act of 1867-passed by Lord Derby's The Reform Act of 1867. Conservative ministry with the aid of the Liberal majority in the House of Commons-a further extension of the electoral franchise in England and Wales was introduced scarcely less important than that conceded by the Reform Acts of 1832.

The borough franchise was extended to all householders (subject to one year's residence and payment of poor's rates) as well as to lodgers occupying lodgings of the annual value of £10. The county occupation franchise was reduced to £12; and 33 seats were withdrawn from English boroughs, 25 of which were transferred to English counties, and the remaining 8 to Scotland and Ireland.5

12& 3 Will. IV. c. 65.

2 10 Geo. IV. c. S. Repealed by Statute Law Revision Act, 1873.

3

2 & 3 Will. IV. c. SS. In 1850 the Irish borough franchise was extended to householders rated at £8, and the qualifications required for the county franchise was also lowered, so as to include the owners of freeholds rated at £5, and occupiers rated at £12 (13 & 14 Vict. c. 69).

5

Supra, p. 349, n. 3.

30 & 31 Vict. c. 102. In the following year Reform Acts were passed for Scotch and

Representation of

By the same Act a perfectly new principle, that of the representation of minorities, was introduced, in a tentative and partial manner, into the representative system. This

Irish Reform Scotland and Ireland, similar to the English Act in principle, but differing Acts, 1868. from it in many of their details. In the Scotch counties the ownership franchise was reduced to lands and heritages' of the yearly value of £5; and a £14 occupation franchise established. The Scotch boroughs received a household, and a lodger, franchise. In Ireland no change was made in the county constituencies, but the borough franchise was further reduced to a £4 rating Occupation. 31 & 32 Vict. c. 48; 31 & 32 Vict. c. 49.

The following tabular statement, compiled from the Parliamentary Return issued in May, 1879, shows the total number of electors in the counties, cities and boroughs, and universities of the United Kingdom then on the Parliamentary Register:

In 1868, prior to the operation of the Reform Acts of 1867 S, the total number of electors, in boroughs and counties, of the United Kingdom, did not exceed 1,370,793.

In the session of 1879, the House of Commons consisted of 650 members, returned as follows by the three divisions of the United Kingdom :

principle had been embodied in Lord John Russell's abortive Reform Bill of 1854, which proposed to assign three members to certain counties, and other large places, the electors of which were to be entitled to vote for two only out of the three. The city of Manchester, and the boroughs of Liverpool, Birmingham, and Leeds, were now each empowered to return three members to Parliament; and it was declared (secs. S, 9) that at a contested election for any county or borough represented by three members, no person should vote for more than two candidates, nor in the City of London, which has four members, for more than three candidates.

elections.

Since the Reform Act of 1832 the attention of Parlia- Suppression of bribery ment has been continually directed to the suppression of and intimibribery and intimidation at elections. The measures for dation at this purpose culminated in 1872 in the passing of an experimental Ballot Act (to continue in force till the The Ballot 31st December, 1880), by which the open nomination of Act, 1872. candidates on the hustings was abolished, and voting by secret ballot at both Parliamentary and municipal elections was substituted for the old English system of open voting.1

ment.

The duration and intermission of Parliament have been Summons, duration.and the subject of important legislative enactments in the intermission period since the Revolution. By the ancient legal doc- of Parlia trine of the constitution, Parliament can only be summoned by the King's writ; when summoned its duration was formerly limited by the King's pleasure alone; and on the death of the King who summoned it, it was held to be ipso facto dissolved. The Parliament which deposed Richard II. in 1399, was held, by a logical deduction of The Parlia the constitutional lawyers of that day, to have ceased ment of 1399. to exist when Richard ceased to be King; but as it was not convenient for Henry IV. to summon a new Parliament an expedient was devised by which, under a transparent legal fiction, the same members who had deposed Richard

135 & 36 Vict. c. 33. The Universities were excepted.